Summary: Outside forces only shine a light on the inside problems. External forces are often painful spotlights on our structural inadequacies, our moral flabbiness and our unpreparedness.

I am filming this video in the midst of a global pandemic. And while this video might be viewed 3 years from now, I just don’t think the Coronavirus will soon be forgotten.

The coronavirus was not the problem. The coronavirus only brought about the conditions that exposed the hidden issues already existing within our organizations and lives. Corona was NOT the problem. Corona was, however, the force that showed us where we were weak and underprepared. Our unpreparedness was the problem. Corona just exposed our weaknesses.

Think of this situation as a tea bag and hot water. You honestly don’t know what’s inside of a tea bag until you put it into hot water. In the same way, we do not know what is truly inside our organizations until they are placed into hot water. The coronavirus WAS that hot water. That hot water was the means of determining what was inside your tea bag all along.

When the virus hit, did you have true disciples or did you have names on a roster? The coronavirus likely exposed that reality. Did you have a system built for 21st technology or was your ministry avoiding digital and reliant upon analog? This preparedness or lack of preparedness was realized because of the coronavirus. The Coronavirus was the grand revealer of what your church and team were really made of.

OUTSIDE forces only shine a light on the INSIDE problems. External forces are often painful spotlights on our structural inadequacies, our moral flabbiness and our unpreparedness. Comically, the great investor Warren Buffet said, “When the tide goes out, you find out who has been swimming naked.” Funny but true.

Let me challenge you: Begin to listen to complaints or see traffic jams as nothing more than a humongous flashing arrow pointing to where you need to address a structural problem.