Hmmm! 3 Benefits?
In seasons when it’s really hard, OR I’m not well, OR our church is not well, OR the tick, tick, tick of postponing actions or hard decisions is waiting to detonate…pride and arrogance gets crushed in me…needs to get crushed in me!
But it doesn’t seem to go anywhere if I don’t have someone(s) I’ve made myself available to who can consistently love me, encourage me, speak words of hope back into me to give me a hand forward with more deeply formed character and vision as a leader.
And maybe all of this is doubly true for those of us who hear ourselves speak and teach and preach. It’s easy to accrue more stature in our own minds than a confident humility might ascribe.
I have found that there are certain advantages (hmmm? advantages?) to pride and arrogance for any and all of us!
- Pride and arrogance allow me to be judgmental and excluding of others without knowing a lot about them or anything else.
- Pride and arrogance allow me to not get tangled up in trusting God to lead me and work His grace and power through me. I’m able to simply lean on myself and not have to worry about the “other stuff.”
- Pride and arrogance evaporate any need for quiet reflection or remorse for sins committed.
I was reading Matthew 20:25-28:
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, … not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.
And I could hear how foreign those words sounded in our world today, and occasionally in my own heart!
Top to bottom…left to right…who am I to say?… arrogance and pride seem to prevail in too many places in the church today.
What bothers me most… I see it too often prevalent in me.
And when I see it in me? Numbers 1, 2, & 3 above are painted in bright colors across my own soul!
And yes, you’re right. They’re far from beneficial!
Jesus offered a different way!
Jesus was certainly not advocating for passive “go along with the majority of folks” leadership! Nor endorsing controlling OR forcing OR threatening people to do what the leader wants them to do.
I love the way Dr. Scott Rische adds to the list of the “what it’s not” when he teaches this to our church leaders internationally.
“True spiritual leadership is active leadership, humble, yet confident and bold leadership, intent on helping people to do what God wants them to do.”
Ironically when congregations are on the wrong side of the life cycle curve and they’re declining or heading toward death, leaders and members tend to behave badly and reach for control and power and a “gotta have it my way” spirit…
…when it seems that humble repentance might be the order of the day.
Humble repentance… Hmmm!
I don’t have much control over any of that.
The best I can do is to repent of my own pride and arrogance and celebrate that the Son of Man gave his life as a ransom for me, and for you!
So, would you do me a favor?
Would you pray for Gail and me? And for Scott and Lori Rische, our international leaders? And for Phil and Kyrie Klopke as 1000 Young Leaders gets started in November?
Also, watch this video:
Thank you! It’s the heart of PLI to train and invest in you, or your leaders, with character and capability to lead boldly, humbly, confidently in the living out of the Mission of God!
