Fear shapes more of our shared life than we sometimes recognize. It enters our congregations through uncertainty about the future, anxiety over dwindling resources, strained relationships, and the questions we carry about our own adequacy and belonging. In our recent blog series, TMC explored how fear influences ministry, and how the practices and promises of our faith help us respond.
Beth Daniel opened the conversation in “On Fear” by considering the difference between reverence for God and the fears competing for our attention. Drawing on a conversation with therapist and former TMC facilitator Kyle Bender, she describes how fear can diminish our capacity for compassion, wisdom, and connection. For ministry leaders, this makes the church’s familiar practices especially consequential. Scripture, worship, confession, and community can ground us in God’s character when fear pulls us toward self-protection. Beth’s charge is clear: “We must be, and do, Church.”
In “The Wall and the Doorway,” Adam Borneman asks us to listen beneath our presenting fears. Anxiety about institutions, economic uncertainty, or cultural change can reveal deeper questions about trust, belonging, and our ability to influence the future. Ministry involves attending to immediate dangers while also addressing these underlying wounds. As Adam writes, “The presenting fear is scarcity; the deeper fear is that perhaps no one is ultimately attending to us.” His reflection invites congregations to become communities where people experience the care and belonging we proclaim.
Adam continues this work in “I am with you. You are mine. A litany.” Rooted in Isaiah 43, the litany gives congregations language for praying together through distrust, division, exhaustion, and uncertainty. Its repeated response, “God is with us,” places each fear within the promise of God’s presence. Here, assurance becomes a communal practice: we speak it together, including when we struggle to believe it alone. The resource reminds us that God’s faithfulness accompanies us through hardship, even when the outcome remains unknown.
Carla Jones Brown offers a timely perspective in “Fear and Great Joy: What the Costumes Know.” Through Halloween costumes, Monsters, Inc., All Saints, and Matthew’s resurrection account, she explores the possibility of carrying fear alongside laughter and joy. She also names the disguises fear wears in congregational life: conflict, avoidance, nostalgia, and the pressure on pastors to appear composed. Reflecting on the women leaving the empty tomb, she writes, “The resurrection does not ask them to pretend to be unafraid. It gives them something stronger to carry alongside the fear.” Resurrection hope gives us courage to move while fear is still present.
In “The Fear of Scarcity,” Ryan Bonfiglio examines what happens when the possibility of running out begins to govern us. Drawing on Israel’s wilderness experience, he identifies two consequences: the drive to accumulate more and the temptation to idealize the past. Both can undermine generosity and obscure what God is doing now. His observation, “For these Israelites, having enough is not enough,” raises searching questions for congregations. Where are we overfunctioning, competing, or clinging to familiar patterns because we are afraid? What might become possible if we trusted God enough to share, collaborate, and take a faithful risk?
Mark Ramsey closes the series with “Leaving the Land of They,” challenging the anonymous voices that so often dominate congregational anxiety: what “they” think, what “they” oppose, and what “they” are saying. These voices can distract us from the particular people and work God has entrusted to us. Mark returns us to the personal nature of God’s call: “You belong in the world of Jesus Christ, who calls you by name.” Faithful leadership grows through accountable relationships and our own response to Jesus’ question about who we say he is.
As we carry these conversations into our congregations and communities, we might begin here: What would we do differently if we trusted that God is with us in the very places we are most afraid?
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