There is a quiet mystery at the center of ministry that we don’t often name—not because it is unimportant, but because it runs beneath everything else we do. It is the reality that what we carry within us inevitably shapes what we carry into the world. Long before strategies or structures, there is a hidden inner life that becomes the foundation of all ministry.
This truth is both sobering and freeing. Sobering because our inner life matters more than we sometimes acknowledge; freeing because it reminds us that God never asked us to generate ministry from our own strength. He asked us to carry Christ.
When I reflect on carry, I think of Christ entering the world through the humble posture of being carried—embodied, present, near. I think of Paul’s longing for Christ to be “formed in us,” dwelling in our inner being. Carrying is not merely something we do; it is something we become. It is the slow, interior shaping of the Spirit that fills our outer ministry with life.
Outside of Every Home for Christ, I occasionally sit with people in the tender places of their stories. I don’t speak about this often, because it isn’t my primary calling here, but the posture of that work has deeply formed me. In counseling, you learn how to sit with someone in their burden without absorbing it as your own. You learn presence, compassion, and the sacred tension of being fully with someone while entrusting the weight of their life to Jesus.
That posture has shaped the way I understand carrying Christ in ministry. We are invited to be attentive and present—to the joys, pressures, and needs around us—without holding everything ourselves. We carry Christ, not everyone else’s weight. And because Christ lives in us, what we carry into conversations, decisions, and relationships is His steadiness, His peace, and His compassion.
The Inner Life Shapes How We See
When our inner life is anchored in Christ, we begin to see differently. People become beloved, not burdens. Challenges become invitations rather than interruptions. Our limitations become places where grace meets us, rather than flaws we must hide.
A leader who tends to their inner life carries a softened, discerning presence. Their peace subtly shifts the atmosphere around them. Their ministry flows not from striving, but from being deeply rooted in Jesus.
The Inner Life Shapes How We Lead
Outer ministry asks us to communicate, decide, create, guide, and solve problems. But the inner life invites us to slow down, listen, surrender, and depend.
When these two worlds are integrated, leadership becomes less reactive and more responsive. We stop trying to carry outcomes that belong to God. We make decisions from a grounded place. Our teams experience us not as hurried or heavy, but as steady, attentive, and trustworthy.
Even in my limited counseling work, I’ve learned the importance of pausing before responding—checking what I’m actually carrying inside. That same discipline has become crucial in leadership. If I’m overloaded internally, it shows. But when my inner life is tended, the way I lead becomes lighter, more gracious, and more aligned with the heart of Christ.
The Inner Life Shapes What We Carry to the Nations
Every Home for Christ’s mission is profoundly relational. We are not simply distributing tools or executing strategies. We are carrying Christ to people—person to person, home to home.
And we cannot carry outwardly what we have not first received inwardly.
A leader whose inner life is rooted in Jesus naturally carries hope, gentleness, conviction, and wisdom into their ministry. Their presence itself becomes a testimony to the gospel.
A Final Invitation
As we reflect on Carry, perhaps the most important question is not, “What am I producing for God?” but “What am I carrying with God?”
Before we carry Christ into homes and nations, He must be carried within us. Ministry begins not with our action, but with His presence forming us from the inside out.
May we be leaders whose inner lives are spacious enough for Christ to dwell richly—and may everything we carry outward flow from that sacred, hidden place where He is still shaping us.
Bri Sweatt
