On my way to work yesterday, (believe it or not, pastors do have “real” jobs and some actually GO TO work) I saw a what I thought was a strange sight that made me laugh.
A yellow Lamborghini with a huge Dickies Jeans bumper sticker was parked on the side of the road next to a dilapidated taxi and smog-belching jeepney.
I’m not really a car guy, but I know that yellow Italian sports cars as wide as Hummers that ride two centimeters from the ground are kinda expensive—like a three-bedroom home in Nashville or a condo in Manila (or a Ulysse Nardin perpetual calendar minute repeater tourbillon—that last comparison was for Sam W and Ron M).
I’ve seen a yellow Lamborghini before, just never with a huge a Dickies Jeans bumper sticker. And, I’ve seen a Dickies bumper sticker—on a muddy Ford F-150 in Nashville—but never on a $250,000 sports car.
Because I was in a hurry, I resisted the temptation to stop and remove the sticker. It just didn’t look right on that car. Dickies and Lamborghini don’t go together.
Back in the day when I was relevant, Levis were cool. Dickies were not. In fact, Dickies used to be cheap 
work pants that no self-respecting cool person would be caught dead in. I know the world has changed a lot lately, and Dickies are in—probably because a teenage billionaire gangster rapper wore them on some MTV awards show.
Knowing that bit of fashion history should explain why I felt compelled to free the Lamborghini from the hideous Dickies sticker.
Now for the leadership lesson. Just as you don’t expect to see an ugly bumper sticker advertising cheap pants on an overpriced Italian sports car, you also should not expect to see pastors, preachers, and Christian leaders wearing pride and arrogance like a bumper sticker.
When I passed the car with the sticker yesterday, I was on my way to a meeting with about 100 of our Metro Manila pastors and preachers. We meet together weekly to try to become better preachers and better leaders and better Christians.
As we talked about the dangers of pride, arrogance, and self-reliance, I quoted Andy Stanley:
“Nobody is arrogant or insincere or slick on purpose. But it happens all the time.”
We all agreed that we all need friends who will help us spot and remove all bumper stickers that make us look ridiculous—things that are out of place in a preacher’s life—things like arrogance and pride.
The painful process of leadership development continues in all of us.