{"id":699529,"date":"2020-05-06T02:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=696808"},"modified":"2020-05-19T13:18:07","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T17:18:07","slug":"the-difference-between-confidence-and-arrogance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-difference-between-confidence-and-arrogance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Difference between Confidence and Arrogance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><i>By Sam Rainer<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We ask leaders to be confident, but we bristle when they become arrogant. What is the difference? The dictionary reveals arrogance is pride, egotism, and inflated self-importance, while confidence is the state of being certain. When an arrogant person grates you, however, you\u2019re not thinking about the technical nuances between confidence and arrogance. You simply feel it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pastors should preach boldly and lead confidently. The foundation of Scripture gives this assurance. But when church leaders begin to rely on their own abilities, arrogance builds, especially when the church grows. Arrogance is the catalyst for building your own kingdom instead of God\u2019s kingdom. How can you tell when confidence is slipping into arrogance?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Constant defensiveness<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Every leader has moments of defensiveness. After all, leaders receive more attention\u2014and thus more blame\u2014for the decisions they make. Rightly so. But when the default reaction to criticism becomes defensiveness, there is reason for concern. Constant defensiveness is a sign the church leader is relying on himself or herself too much. And self-reliance is one of the pillars of arrogance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Protectionism<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. When ministries become \u201cmy turf,\u201d arrogant decisions become normative. Church leaders should do everything they can to prop up their ministries. However, when church leaders advance their ministries at the expense of others, it\u2019s a sign confidence has become arrogance. Church ministry is not a zero sum game, in which a gain in one area comes at the expense of another area. Good ministry, and confident leaders, are collaborative and cooperative.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Imitation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Imitating other mature leaders is biblical, if the goal of this imitation is to be like Christ. Imitating others to mirror their success is arrogance. Frequently comparing yourself to other successful church leaders is a form of ministry envy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Using intellect as a weapon<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. One of the greatest pieces of advice I\u2019ve ever received came from a quiet\u2014but godly\u2014personnel committee member: \u201cSam, it\u2019s good you like to learn, but don\u2019t <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ever<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> use your intellect as a weapon.\u201d Those words have stuck with me. Just because you might know a few more facts than the next person does not give you the right to use them to demean others. Only arrogant leaders use their intellect to climb over followers. Intellectual elitism has no place in the church.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Self-promotion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. This one is obvious. If all your sermon examples are about you, then you\u2019ve got a problem with arrogance. If all your tweets are about you, then you\u2019ve got a problem with arrogance. The problem with arrogant self-promoters is they don\u2019t recognize their problem. Thus the cycle of arrogance and self-promotion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boldness and confidence are biblical. Arrogance is destructive. Discerning the difference between confidence and arrogance can be difficult. Defensiveness, protectionism, imitation, intellectual elitism, and self-promotion are all major warning signs of arrogance.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sam Rainer\u00a0 We ask leaders to be confident, but we bristle when they become arrogant. What is the difference? The dictionary reveals arrogance is pride, egotism, and inflated self-importance, while confidence is the state of being certain. When an arrogant person grates you, however, you\u2019re not thinking about the technical nuances between confidence and&#8230;","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":699501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,177,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-lead","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Difference between Confidence and Arrogance | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Arrogance is the catalyst for building your own kingdom instead of God\u2019s kingdom. How can you tell when confidence is slipping into arrogance?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/the-difference-between-confidence-and-arrogance\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Difference between Confidence and Arrogance | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Arrogance is the catalyst for building your own kingdom instead of God\u2019s kingdom. 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