Fear is the emotion that many churches want a person to feel, at least at first. Because fear is such a strong emotion, it causes many to commit to a given church.
The relationship which I have found with God has nothing to do with fear, but rather its opposite love. I find fear completely useless in life, especially in relation to faith.
Fear immobilizes, isolates, and drives us to make other bad decisions. I could see how that would be useful in any religion, from a standpoint of controlling the masses, but then one feels deceived, coerced and manipulated.
Respect is fear’s close cousin to which @marinelife refers above.
For instance, I have a healthy respect for traffic safety, handguns, heights, an angry woman, etc. In a greater way, I have a healthy respect for God. It is greater, because I barely have a clue of how dangerous God’s love is.
I am sure most people are a bit more cautious about things they don’t understand.