This section can be applied personally, and not just "work of ministry".
It can't because James said dead faith can not save.
If the works that get burned up are your personal works of holiness then you make the passage contradict James and are saying dead faith (faith without works attached) CAN save.
If I witness to someone and they choose not to believe, why is it that "I" suffer loss?
Because they will not be in the kingdom to be your reward for your labor in the building and field of God.
What? People' are my work and my reward for my labor done in this life for the kingdom of God? Yes, they are:
"Are you (Corinthians) not my work in the Lord? "-1 Corinthians 9:1
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19For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you (Thessalonians)?
20Indeed, you are our glory and joy."-1 Thessalonians 2:19-20
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If I have many good works, but every single person I witness to decides not to believe, why am I saved "as one escaping through the flame"?
Because you brought nothing (nobody) with you in your escape through the fiery end time judgment of fire. Like a person who wakes suddenly and escapes the burning house and leaves everybody else behind with no one to show for his efforts to save the others.
In regard to ministry this is shameful, if you have no work to show for your labor because you were lazy or uneducated in the truth. That is why we must labor with competence, with energy and motivation, and with the truth. False doctrine is not going to produce people who pass through the fires of the coming judgment. They won't be on the other side for them to be your reward for your labor in the field and building of God. You yourself will be saved (assuming you weren't teaching false doctrine on purpose) but only as one who escapes with nothing but his own skin from a burning building.