I am hesitant to make predictions in uncertain times, but I can foresee some permanent shifts in the way we live. For example, I expect that the Zoom meeting will become a permanent fixture in the work landscape. Had the pandemic come at the turn of the millennium, we would have had more difficulty coping, as the internet was still in its infancy. But with so many means of online communication now available to us, shifting to at-home work – for many of us at least – has been far less difficult than it would have been then.
Speaking for myself, the pandemic revolutionized my own work. Prior to 2020, I had accepted the occasional invitations to travel and to speak in such places as Germany, Brazil, Australia and various parts of Canada and the United States. In March of 2020 I had planned to fly to North Carolina to teach at a seminary there, but that had to be cancelled once the pandemic had broken out.
But around the same time, I began receiving multiple invitations to write and speak from around the world. Obviously, with the dawn of the “Zoom age,” those interested in my work had quickly discovered that they could easily have me speak from a distance without having to fly me in and billet and feed me during my visit. As a result, I am busier now than I could have imagined beforehand.
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