Fear cripples people & congregations

My experience is that fear cripples both people and congregations.

Leonard Sweet wrote in The Gospel According to Starbucks (not the best book he has written, but there were a few quotable lines)
“The greatest gift my mentor gave me was helping me learn to move through my fear and to embrace creativity and spontaneity. When I learned to trust God and act on the ideas, dreams, and passions he placed in my heart, that’s when my life and ministry took a new energizing and fruit-bearing direction. What would your life look like if you were no longer controlled by your fears of what others might think?”

2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

If only we would claim the power that is from God.