Australia has some great exports. My Australian brother-in-law gave me my first and only stubby holder (he balked at giving me one with 'chick magnet' inscribed on it, I am a man of the cloth). As a family we've enjoyed The Wiggles, INXS, Boomerangs, Colin Buchanan, The Crocodile Hunter, and the My Place book and DVDs. And the word 'Wuss'. Just unbeatable in its power to expose and shame.
Phillip Jensen is one of Australia's most significant spiritual exports in the last forty years, as most evangelicals know, or should know. There are some things not to like in his pragmatics and disregard for certain ways of doing ministry. And yet, there's everything to like. Phillip is not for wusses. He exposes wusses for our wussiness. You can't hear Phillip preach, or read him, without feeling sobered, and spineless. Phillip is simply a stunningly courageous and effective servant of the Lord Jesus. He has a ministry to wusses.
You’ve got to take up your cross and follow Jesus. So this is no career move for the faint-hearted. This is no career move for someone who wants an easy life or a nice life. You’re not going to be accepted, and you’re not going to be liked: you are following the crucified one.
So grasp that reality before you start. That’s not an invitation for nasty people to join the ministry. If you enjoy conflict you have a spiritual problem. But if you withdraw from conflict, or think you’re going to win people over by niceness, you have a major problem because you’re not actually dealing with Christianity. People like using the suffering servant of the cross as an image of loving service. It is that. But it is also an image of painful martyrdom and alienation and rejection. That’s what Christian ministry is always going to be about.
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