Skip to main content

Are You Experiencing Neck Pain In Your Ministry?

Three weeks of neck pain. I don't want to get into any comparison with anyone who has chronic pain that lasts for years. But three weeks of neck pain for me is not common. Three weeks of neck pain can cause some problems. 

First, there's the neck pain. For me, it means three weeks of telling my energetic children they can't jump on me and use me as a jungle-Rick. It's three weeks of turning my whole body to face people. And it started out as three weeks of guilt-free non-exercise. 

The joy of not practicing discipline in physical exercise lasted about four days. Then I found myself at a loss as to what to do with all this energy. Since my neck has been hurt I have been hungering for movement, for exercise, for the freedom to move. 

I was becoming accustomed to trying to find positions that would avoid pain as I lay around...like a lump. Yeah, the ego took a hit as the lack of exercise had other adverse effects. As Hollywood's Reese Witherspoon so intelligently pointed out in her smash hit Legally Blonde, "Exercising gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy. Happy people don't kill people!"

I wasn't happy. 

This physical feeling is similar to how I feel about ministry. The neck has been wounded and we often are just situating ourselves to not be in pain. But some feel a sense if confinement at not being free, at not exercising our abilities, at not growing and moving. 

Here's how I dealt with the physical pain and how it translates to ministry.

1. Go see a doctor.
They have experience with this kind of thing. Sitting around hoping for the pain to go away, while not actually doing anything to make it go away, sounds like a definition of insanity. We often do this in ministry, opting to tell the physicians why their solutions won't work. 

2. Take the medicine.
Some of it has effects that I didn't like, the most politely advertised being the sleep-inducing coma. But until healing takes place, forward motion is not very productive or sustainable. This goes for ministry as well. Deal with the pain now and bring healing or find yourself dealing with it for years to come. 

3. Embrace the health.
I do have to admit that a life with less discipline, i.e. getting up early to exercise, was kind of nice. Yes, the cookies and the ice cream and the slices of pie were doing things to my body that I did not appreciate. I could remember exercising those effects away in the past. But I began to embrace the extra sleep, the extra time sitting around. But that is not healthy.

If we are to have health in ministry, we have to remember the benefits of what health can do. We have to kick the bad habits, which take less than three weeks to form. 

I have now been a few days past experiencing neck pain. I have even exercised a few times. Once I caught my breath, it felt good. I am enjoying the freedom of turning my neck to people calling, of playing with my kids. In ministry, we can enjoy the health of impacting people for good, of accomplishing mission goals and of bringing God glory. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Accountable

I recently officiated a wedding. The ceremony was simple, lovely, and ended with another couple professing to keep the covenant of marriage. But it all started with a clarification...from me. At our first premarital counseling session, as I have done with every couple I have agreed to marry, I clarified a couple of matters. First, I officiate Christian weddings, where both spouses-to-be are professing Christians. I firmly believe that marriage is difficult enough, without adding disagreements about God into the mix. Second, as a minister of Jesus Christ, I believe the pastor’s role in a wedding is to represent the blessing of God on that union. So we have several sessions of premarital counseling where we discuss married life. It’s not that I have this imaginary card in my head, with a picture of me on the front and my stats on the back. (You know, like a baseball card.) Ok, I do picture cards. Pastor cards! And being a competitive guy, I want my stats to look good. The number of coupl

Patience

I am more than halfway through the last year of dropping one of my children off at school. It's my eighth grade daughter, for anyone keeping track of my family.  See, next year she will be at the high school, and her brother will drive her. He says that it's not cool for seniors to drive their freshman sister to school, but I bet it's cooler than being dropped off by your mom in a minivan.  So rather than groan about this daily responsibility, I've been reminiscing about what the drop-off line used to look like, way back in elementary school. Once our children were about halfway through their elementary years, the drop-off line became a test of patience.  Do you know which group you do not want to get caught behind in the parent drop-off line at an elementary school? The kindergartners. These little ones are barely able to walk, but now we put them in the high-pressure situation of trying to unbuckle their seat-belt, grab their backpack (which might be as tall as they a

Jury Duty

I was recently summoned to jury duty. I know, groan. Except I didn't. I had never experienced it before and was curious to see what it was like.   When the day to report arrives, they separate you into groups, asking various questions to decide if you will be selected to serve. Do you know the accused? Do you have conflicts that would keep you from serving? Can you stay focused?  I wanted to answer well, if only because my kids kept wishing me luck the day before, telling me they hoped I made the team. After all, who wants to be rejected? It occurred to me that there are things you probably shouldn’t say right away if you’re wanting to serve on a jury. I know, I know, people don’t typically want to serve on a jury. But that list didn’t seem nearly as humorous to me. Here are the things you probably shouldn’t say if you want to be selected for jury. I hold myself in contempt. You can’t handle the truth. We find the defendant guilty. I believe the judge looks pretty in his robe. I’d