the fears are gone

the fears are gone February 18, 2013

sophia fearless drawing by nakedpastor david hayward
Sophia “Fearless” by nakedpastor David Hayward

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”.


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