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5 Fears That Stop Christian Professionals From Living Out Their Calling (And How to Break Free)
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Episode Description
In this episode, Ken Freire and Patrick Lowndes explore the five fears that often keep Christian professionals from stepping into their God-given calling in the workplace and beyond. They unpack how these fears show up in real life—especially around money, clarity, career trajectory, skill confidence, and family—and offer practical reframes rooted in faith and work integration to help listeners move forward with purpose.
Resources Mentioned
- The Forge (training and network program mentioned for global/mission-minded professionals)
- Global Switchboard (https://www.globalswitchboard.io)
- Buried Talent – Episode 31 (discussion referenced on global Christian professional mindsets)
Timestamps
- 00:00 – 01:00 | Introduction & Episode Theme
Ken and Patrick introduce the show and set up the discussion around five fears holding Christian professionals back from living out their calling. - 01:00 – 03:02 | Fear #1: Money
Discussion on financial pressure, supporting family, and reframing work as both provision and platform for impact. - 03:02 – 05:11 | Fear #2: No Clear Path
Explores confusion around how careers connect to global or missional work, and introduces different “operator” pathways (local to frontier engagement). - 05:11 – 06:03 | Fear #3: Career Damage
Addresses concern that international or missional work could hurt future career prospects and reframes it as potential career growth. - 06:03 – 07:36 | Fear #4: Not Skilled Enough
Challenges the belief of inadequacy, emphasizing that existing skills can be used meaningfully in global contexts and through platforms like Global Switchboard. - 07:36 – 11:57 | Fear #5: Family Concerns & Closing Reflections
Discusses family stability, shared calling, and the importance of involving spouses and children in discerning purpose together within a faith community.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction: Buried Talent and Five Fears
00:00:08
Ken Freire
Welcome to Buried Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are.
00:00:13
Patrick
Thank you.
00:00:18
Ken Freire
I'm Ken Freire here with Patrick Lowndes, and today we're talking about the five fears that stop Christian professionals from living out their calling and how to break free.
Desire for Global Impact vs. Feeling Stuck
00:00:27
Ken Freire
And Patrick, the reason we are talking about this is because I think a lot of people sense a global calling. They want to do something bigger than themselves, not just locally, but they see all the stuff going on around the world and they're like, how can I help?
00:00:42
Ken Freire
How can I bring transformation and work alongside other cultures, but they don't know how to do it because they feel stuck in the same job or in the same trajectory.
00:00:52
Ken Freire
And they keep thinking to themselves, someday I'll be able to do that. But underlying all that is fear that is stopping them. So today we're going to talk about that. We're going to unlock and diagnose what's actually keeping people stuck.
00:01:06
Patrick
Oh yeah. Yeah. You got
Sacredness of All Work
00:01:08
Patrick
it. And, and so, and unfortunately we've only put this in a couple different, know, buckets of here's, if I'm a professional, like I basically just have to go and quit my job and do some other kind of traditional ministry type path.
00:01:21
Patrick
And like, you've been hanging out with us long enough. You know, are staunch believers that, that all the work that you do is sacred to God, right? And so we believe your work in accounting and engineering and marketing is sacred to God, if and only if you'd think about it like that. But today we're to what holds you back, where there's five fears, can give us the first big fear that holds people back from possibly making a change or leveraging their career or profession to be more impactful. What's probably the number one fear? Go for it.
Financial Fears and Alternatives
00:01:52
Ken Freire
Yeah, the first one would say is money, right? They can't afford to go or you can't risk going somewhere else because you have to provide for your family, right? And you've heard two versions of this where it's either, hey, go and be a ministry and support raise. And you're like, well,
00:02:10
Ken Freire
That looks weird, right? Because for some people are like, why are you not working? And then the other one is like, well, just might as well just keep working and give a lot of money. But there's a third way of doing it where it's like you can actually afford to help people. And the way you do that is either A, you start something, business in a new area, or you go join an existing business out there and like they can support you.
00:02:34
Patrick
Yeah, I'm also gonna talk, was having lunch with a guy just starting his career out at Amazon, a massive company, just met with him for lunch this week. And he asked me this question, he's like, Patrick, what do I do about this whole thing about money? And I feel like I should be wanting to make more money, but I also wanna be effective. And so lot of you are still in that phase where you're building experience, and yeah, you should stack some chips, you should make some money while you're doing that.
00:03:00
Patrick
But there comes a point when the Lord will provide enough to where you could continue to see, okay, God's been faithful. Now I'm get creative. So it's not to say like, don't make money or don't build a steady foundation. You want to have that foundation, but you get to a certain point and when is enough ever enough,
Career Fit in Global Work
00:03:19
Patrick
right? All right, let's get to fear number two, which is no clear path. I don't see how my career fits into any kind of global work.
00:03:28
Patrick
And I would say, if that's you, you're like, yeah, I kind of have this desire to be about God's work. Go listen to the last episode, 31, where we were just talking about the four different kinds of mindsets and global Christian professionals. Because not everyone's got this, surely not everyone's got the same role, right? And so what you got to figure out is what's my role and how does my particular skillset and what is God, the word calling is literally God is calling to me. He's like calling out. And so God has a specific direction for each of us and it's going to unfold and change over time. So if you don't see a clear path, go back to 31 and listen to those. There's four of them. It's a marketplace ambassador. You're mostly focused here locally. It's a global advocate.
00:04:12
Patrick
I've still got my day job, but I'm trying to do more work in helping overseas and around the world. Global operator, that's the third one. That's where I'm shift my daily work to be more focused around the world.
00:04:22
Patrick
And then four is frontier operator. I'm actually going to go help operate companies, start and or operate companies in the frontier, like moving myself across the world.
Fear of Career Damage from International Work
00:04:31
Patrick
So that's the second one. No clear path, but there is a clear path.
00:04:34
Patrick
I just told you the four different paths. So if you want to learn about that, hang out with us.
00:04:37
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:04:38
Patrick
We'll show you what that looks like. That's fear number two.
00:04:41
Ken Freire
Yeah. Well, and let me just say, well, fear number two is that lots of times people don't know how to get there. They're like, okay, cool. I'm a global operator, but now what do I do? How do I make that happen? Or a frontier operator? How do I make that happen? Well, that's part of the reason why we created the Forge is to actually give you a really clear path to proper training and the proper network for you to actually be able to go if that's where you want to go. Let's talk about fear number three.
00:05:07
Ken Freire
Not everyone has this fear, but it is a fear. It's career damage. They feel like if I actually go pursue something that is really on my heart, either a passion or just decide to go work overseas, that might affect me if I come back to the States and want to work somewhere. People may look at that negatively.
00:05:26
Patrick
Yeah, you nailed it. That's right. And so thinking about just for a second, if you ran a company or a division or did something internationally in another market and had any kind of success doing that, I would actually argue that is a career bump. It shows that you've got some street cred that you were able to go over to another part of the world and actually still produce, which means it implies your ability to fit in and to adapt what you know from potentially an American context or North American context to that side of the world.
00:05:56
Patrick
All right.
Skill Perception and Global Opportunities
00:05:57
Patrick
Number four, I might not be skilled enough.
00:05:57
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:06:00
Patrick
This is a tricky one. So you might say, hey, I'm, you know, maybe in the first five years of my career or, hey, I've only done this one thing. I'm not really sure, like, what could God do with this one skill set? I think of it like the little boy with, you know, the two fish and the five loaves, like, this is all I got. Like, now what?
00:06:18
Patrick
And I know like pastors will turn that into a big sermon. Just bring God your fish and your loaves. I mean, Dallas Jenkins, like the fish and the loaves production. I get that. I know it's overused, but let me tell you, God can take the domain skillset that you have and, and use that skillset.
00:06:27
Ken Freire
you
00:06:33
Patrick
If just put towards a more purposeful, uh, uh, end point. So for example, If you just are really good at one thing, there's actually tons of opportunities and ways to plug in.
00:06:43
Patrick
On our community, we actually talk about on the global switchboard.io. So if you go to switchboard, it's called global switchboard.io. You can find tons of opportunities to use your skill set to help people on the other sides of the world.
00:06:56
Patrick
Oh my goodness. Yes. A zoom link, hop on a zoom link and you can help somebody with graphic design on their site. Cause they're horrible at it and you're like pretty good at it. Or someone hates accounting and like you love QuickBooks. Like, oh my goodness, that's an amazing way. So you'd be surprised with the skills that you have, how much good you can do with them. So you're not skilled enough.
00:07:15
Patrick
I don't think, I think the better to rephrase that is you actually just don't see the opportunities of where your skills could be placed. That's actually should be thinking about it. Ken, get us to number five and then we'll bring it home.
00:07:27
Ken Freire
Yeah, number five is and this one might not affect everyone, but it's family.
Family Impact and Involvement in Global Work
00:07:33
Ken Freire
You know, what does this do to my spouse, my kids, my family stability? It's one thing for you to go out there and you might be like, yeah, I'm ready. I'm gung ho. I'm the one who's adaptable. I'm the one who can change.
00:07:44
Ken Freire
But I don't know if I want to put my family through this. So you're concerned about like kids' education, their friendships, your spouse, what are they going to do? It almost feels like your family is moving just for the thing that you want to do, but it's not a mission for the family.
00:08:01
Ken Freire
Right. So now you're your spouse is like at home and just chilling in a country with no one to talk to, one to hang out with. And they're trying to live life. It's difficult.
00:08:11
Ken Freire
Right. But the truth is that.
00:08:12
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:15
Ken Freire
The reframe that you need is that this is not just a you thing. It is a family thing. And you want your family on board.
00:08:22
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:23
Ken Freire
And your family could drastically see amazing transformation within your nuclear network, meaning your nuclear family. Because you just build better bonds.
00:08:33
Ken Freire
You build different strengths. You learn to grow.
00:08:35
Ken Freire
You learn to connect. And you'd be surprised how hospitable other cultures are. Like, let's be real. American culture is very individualistic and not very hospitable.
00:08:45
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:47
Ken Freire
Two thirds of the world, what I would actually argue, are way more hospitable than we are.
00:08:48
Patrick
That's right.
00:08:52
Ken Freire
The South is pretty hospitable, but overall, we are not very hospitable group of people.
00:08:52
Patrick
Yeah.
00:08:57
Patrick
Yeah. Now, where to get help
Church Guidance in Family Callings
00:08:58
Patrick
with this? We tell folks in our program, so a lot of people in our program are, many of them are like just getting married or just been married for a few years, maybe having the first kid.
00:09:09
Patrick
Some people already have kids that are teenagers, right? So we got people at all ends of the spectrum in our programs. But here's what we usually tell them is,
00:09:16
Ken Freire
Thank you.
00:09:16
Patrick
Your church is literally God's design for the primary discipler of you and your family, right? The elders, pastors at your church, leaders in your church. And so what we always encourage people to do is say, how is your church helping your family discern a family-level calling? And maybe it's just you and your girlfriend right now, or you and your boyfriend, you're thinking about this, or maybe you just got married and it's like, hey, it's just us, now what, right?
00:09:42
Patrick
I would challenge you to say, what is our family vision? Bethany and I do this a lot. We step back and we say, okay, what is our family called to?
00:09:52
Patrick
Like one of them is actually convening people. Like as a family level, we feel like it's part of our family calling to convene people. which for my wife is going to be more like convening the ballet moms and convening the homeschooling families and convening those things. For me, I'm like convening neighborhood and strangers and convening business people and entrepreneurs. And so you can see, even though convening is the family level goal, right?
00:10:18
Patrick
We need to be focused on how are we aligned and have some clarity around what is our family, how is our family part of what God is calling us to do, not just me. And that's kind of a maturity shift. When you get married and you start to build that family, you're like, oh, wait, it's not just me.
Overcoming Fears Through Faith and Community Support
00:10:33
Patrick
But at times it will very much feel like there's two separate things here, especially the more kids you pile on there. So Ken, you want to close us out today and just kind of bring this home?
00:10:43
Ken Freire
Yeah. You know, it's funny when you talk about the more kids you had, because if you guys don't know this, Patrick and I both have five kids. So it's a party and it's a lot more to think about sometimes.
00:10:49
Patrick
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:52
Ken Freire
Like, how does this affect stuff? But one thing I will say is when you trust God and you are living for his kingdom, And your family sees that.
00:11:01
Patrick
Yeah.
00:11:03
Ken Freire
It's a beautiful thing. You don't want it to be about just you. It's like, how do I bring everybody in? So all these five fears, right? As you think about it, money, no clear path, career damage, not skilled enough, and family.
00:11:16
Ken Freire
They are fears. Some of them are legitimate, but they all have answers to them. And as long as you keep seeking guidance, you keep seeking truth, and you keep listening to the podcast, if it's helpful for you, you will be able to break through those fears by trusting in God and saying, you know what, Lord?
00:11:32
Ken Freire
I'm going to do what you called me to do and trust that he's going to supply for every need as you're going out and impacting other people. So with that being said, keep operating, keep living out in your God-given design and keep working for his glory. Hope you guys have a great day and God bless.