Kirk Cameron and I finished a shoot for the third season of our television program. It was called, “Where Has the Passion Gone?” where we looked at why we have lost passion in our preaching. The teaching is based on a portion of Scripture where King Saul threatened to cut a yoke of oxen in pieces. As we spoke, we stood behind a small bull that had a big hump on its back and long horns on its head.
When the filming was over I asked the cowboy who was holding the animal if it could be ridden. Moments later, I quietly slipped onto its back. Suddenly the bull took off, and I instinctively grabbed the horns. The “ride” only lasted for a few seconds, but it was caught on camera. Both Kirk and I were still wired up for sound, and the amusing thing about the clip isn’t me on a bull, but that Kirk was incredulous at what he had just seen. He kept saying, “He grabbed the horns! He grabbed the horns!” He said it four times.
My justification for taking the bull by the horns was that I had no choice. There was no rope around the beast’s belly for me to grab, and the only other choice was its ears, and I’m not that stupid.
The Beast of Evangelism
If you do an Internet search on the ten top fears of humanity, the odds are you won’t find that bull-riding is up there. You will instead find fears like the fears of salespeople, fears of job seekers, fears people have of the future, the fear of snakes, of spiders, heights, etc.
But there is one fear of which little is said. It is the “fear of man.” There is one terrifying beast that is synonymous with that particular trepidation. It’s called “evangelophobia.” Just the thought of seeking the lost terrifies most of us. It makes our palms sweat, and our heart palpitate. If you have those symptoms, you are not alone ...
