Unused Ministry Muscles

I’m working on a kitchen remodel. The old tile floor needs to come out.

The day after I first tore into the floor, I had an ache in a muscle I didn’t know I had. If you could draw a line to outline your shoulder blade… whatever muscle is underneath that… was very sore. Apparently, using a chisel and hammer repeatedly activated that muscle in a way that I felt for days.

I was still feeling that ache when a friend shared:

I’ve been in a ministry job in some capacity for all of my life, so I don’t really know how to engage lost people very well. It’s sortof like an unused muscle.

It may have been my aching shoulder that made that comment ping in my mind.

Or, more likely, it was because I have had the same experience.

I have been in ‘full-time ministry’ my whole adult working life. There was a season when I didn’t know how to share the Gospel with others. But even though I have improved on that, I still find that I don’t really know what it’s like to have unsaved coworkers. I’ve never had a friend group that was predominantly made up of people far from God.

I’m not complaining, but I am highlighting that the muscle of “engaging lost people I am relationally close to” is largely unused for me.

And I think that is the case for most people in full-time ministry.

It’s a different muscle than knocking on a stranger’s door. Both require the specific skill of ‘how-to-share-the-gospel.’ But if you only ever talk to strangers, you don’t feel that pain point of “oh man, I’m going to have to talk to this guy again tomorrow.”1

The problem is, most people who are training everyday believers with everyday jobs to share the gospel… those trainers are often people who have not had to use that muscle. Myself included.

I think this is worth acknowledging.

I also think that if you realize a muscle could benefit from a little strengthening, you can and should start to work it out a little bit:

Where can you go to build relationships as you share the Gospel?

Or, if you need this to be less convicting: Where can you work that annoying muscle under your shoulder blade before you start tearing out your kitchen floor?