the fears are gone

I came across an old blog post, The Sum of All My Fears". I realized, upon reading the list of 10 fears, that all of them were related to me being a pastor within the church. Take a look:

1. angering my superiors;
2. upsetting people in my church who can do damage;
3. being excommunicated;
4. losing these friends;
5. my family being hurt because of me;
6. our church closing down;
7. being unemployed;
8. being attacked and ridiculed by those within and outside of the church;
9. offending more people here than I help;
10. being wrong (truly a heretic) and leading people astray.

I left the ministry at that particular church, and left the church, in the spring of 2010. I've visited a few since then. But once I left the ministry, all of these fears disappeared. I'm not saying the answer for me was to leave the church. What I am saying though is that once I left the church, I realized that these fears were somehow nurtured by the church and its support of the professional ministry. In other words, these are the fears that accompany ministry. Now I realize that they were as nothing. I wish I knew that then. Get a print of Sophia "Fearless".