Mindful Leader

Unafraid -- Fear of Failure

Numbers 13: 27-33 and 1st Timothy 1: 3-11

This is a look at the Fear of Failure with a lot of help from Brene Brown and others.  

Key is that Caleb means "Whole Hearted" and Joshua means "God is Salvation."  

January 28, 2018 – Fear of Failure

This fourth sermon on this topic will reprise elements of the first week – here focus is we often just don't get started because we are afraid of failing.   

Question is "what giants or monsters do we fear in our quest to be agents of transformation in the world?"  I wonder how much of the answer is a lack of trust:  trust in God and trust in ourselves? 

There be monsters was on the edge of selected nautical maps in the 15^th Century.  That which was out of sight was also to be feared.  We create our own monsters.  It does seem to me that the idea of "fear of failure" to some extent may be the unstated rhinoceros (elephant?) at the table on our new church start conversation.  Maybe.

The issue is to get to being Unafraid.  Yes, we all suffer from Fear of Failure and a solid dose of trust – God, others, ourselves, is an excellent cure. 

Numbers 13: 27-33, 14: 1-3, 1^st Timothy 1: 3-11, will frame the discussion.

Unafraid -- Fear of the Other

 

This was a look at Fear of the Other.  Connect with each other.  Quite a bit of reference back to the music we sang this day.  The reprise I used was a little play off an acronym of FEAR -- Face Everything and Rise with some words from Dr. King on moving from fear to knowing and meeting.

Question is "how often do we let our fear of the stranger drive us to not connect."

Some continuation of the previous week's theme of connectedness, but here the connectedness is getting past the dikes that hold us in our own flood of fear of the other.  Dikes of courage (among other things) are needed (a quote i thought about using, but didn't.)

I am currently listening to Isaac Asimov Robots of Dawn and wonder how much of this might be helpful ... if you are not familiar with the book, do not worry.  If you are, the conversation Daneel and Elijah in Chapter 2 is what I am thinking.  Elijah has to see Robots differently on Aurora than on Earth.  On Earth, they are an object of scorn and subservience.  On Aurora (a fictitious planet) they are near equals, if not precisely equals.  Elijah has to be taught this, as it does not come naturaly to him.  Yes? 

Quotes from Dr. King: 

• "People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other."
• "We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear."

― Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Unafraid - We Need Community

Question is "what keeps you from getting connected with others?"

But two prong:  we ourselves must open ourselves up to others but others must also look at us and be willing to attempt to connect with us.  Not an either/or but both/and. 

Music focusing on community (invite the stranger) but also recognizing the need for solitude.  Mixed. A balance.  Not exclusively hang out with others all day/every day.  We need to be together, in fact, we are made to be in community but on the other hand, it is natural, and biblical to seek moments alone. 

Unafraid -- Setting the Stage

This series springs from the well dug by the Reverend Adam Hamilton, Church of the Resurrection, Leawood, Kansas. 

This is getting started with the idea of Unafraid.  We actually live in a time of borderline irrational fear.  The numbers are good.  We are healthy, wealthy, and longest lived people and for some reason, we are more and more afraid.  

Sermon draws from Isaiah 41: 1-10, Psalm 56: 3-4 and Philippians 4: 6-7.  

This starts a six week series on Fear.  The first sermon is on how much of fear is more imaginary than real.  Question is "what are you afraid of".  I know FDR is not Jesus but "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself" is part of the idea if not the message. 

FEAR can at times be False Events Appearing Real.  At times we live in a world where smoke detectors are going off but it is because their batteries are low, not because there is anything to really fear.  Topical sermon so form will roughly be:  The element of the human condition we are going to look at (Unnecessary Fear), exegete that element of the HC, what does scripture say about it (the Isaiah, Psalm, Philippians and of course Jesus (sermon on the mount)), and then application. 

We do live in times where Auden's "Age of Anxiety" is incomplete and for whatever reason we live in an "Age of High Anxiety."  Real? 

Christmas Eve, 2017

 

This is my Christmas Eve reflection.  Bonhoeffer meets Ebenezer Scrooge with a little help from other sources.  

Advent 4 -- Expectation

 

Special thanks to Kathy Wheeler for preaching for me in the morning of Christmas Eve.  This is Advent 4 and the key word for the morning was expectation.  Again, thank you to Kathy for filling in for me.  

Adent 3 -- Self Awareness

Advent 2 -- Personal Holiness

Advent 1 -- Hope

Christ the King Sunday

 

Christ the King Sunday.  The last Sunday in the Church Year.