Deconstructing Christianity Today: A redesign story
Sarah Gordon | Creative Director, Christianity Today
Jared Boggess | Senior Designer, Christianity Today
A look inside the process for how Christianity Today’s print magazine was rebuilt from the ground up and the lessons learned along the way.
Putting News Back in e-Newsletters
Brian Kaylor | Editor-in-Chief, Word&Way
An e-newsletter can function as a stand-alone publication, rather than just a roundup of news links or a promotional piece to lead readers to other publications or products. From regular publications to pop-up ones (like for Advent), newsletters can break news or inform and inspire subscribers. This session will cover why and how to launch and craft a newsletter publication that offers unique news, analysis, or commentary, as well as ways to design and monetize newsletters for inboxes and web reading.
What you will learn:
• Trends in newsletters
• Technical and design tips for creating a newsletter
• Strategies for growing a newsletter’s subscriber count
Developing a Strategic Publication Plan
Rachel Forrest | Director of Content and Deputy Editor, The Voice of the Martyrs
Benjamin Franklin is often credited with saying, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” In this workshop, Rachel Forrest, Director of Content and Deputy Editor at The Voice of the Martyrs will discuss the principles and tools of strategic planning for publishing content and how they implement it at VOM to accomplish their organizational purpose of bringing the global body of Christ into fellowship with our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ.
Level Up Your Spiritual Storytelling…By Going Back to the Bible
Bishop Paul Lanier | Board Chairman | Int’l Fellowship of Christians and Jews
Bishop Paul Lanier, Founder of Hope Community Church and Board Chairman of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (The Fellowship), shares insights on how to elevate your spiritual storytelling efforts, including how to gather new and impactful stories and assets, and how to effectively tie the stories of your mission and beneficiaries to not only the news of today, but also to the Bible and our shared Judeo-Christian values.
What you will learn:
• How to effectively gather new, impactful stories and assets that have spiritual significance
• How to tell effective, authentic stories in any situation that will resonate with your faith-based audience
• How to tell effective stories during crisis situations to drive engagement• How to tie current stories to the Bible and to our shared Judeo-Christian values and the Holy Land
Picture Perfect Prompts: Master the art of AI image generation
Dustin Stout | Founder/CEO, Magai
Discover how to create stunning AI-generated images that capture your exact vision, as you learn to select the right AI models and craft powerful prompts that work every time. In this hands-on session, you’ll see real examples that transform basic prompt techniques into professional-quality visual content perfect for ministry and media organizations.
What you will learn:
• Model selection mastery: Learn which AI image generators excel at different styles and purposes
• Prompt power principles: Master the essential elements of prompts that produce consistent, high-quality results
• Style secrets revealed: Understand how to specify art styles, lighting, composition, and mood effectively
• Troubleshooting toolkit: Discover quick fixes for common image generation problems and how to refine results
A Post-Mass-Media World: The credibility collapse of secular media
Michael Ryan | Executive Editor, The Lion
Gallup Polls indicate secular media have suffered an absolute stock market crash in trust and credibility. We’ll look at the opportunities and challenges this provides Christian media while exploring tools we can use to grow and benefit from it.
What you will learn:
• How to attract and keep the audiences that secular media are repelling
• The five pillars of power, and what’s behind the collapse of one of them
• The vital difference between bias and point of view, and why it matters
Staying On-Message
Cheryl Odden | Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor, The Voice of the Martyrs|
Todd Nettleton | Vice President of Message, The Voice of the Martyrs
How does an organizational publication stay on-message while being relevant to readers? And as a writer, editor, designer or podcast producer, how do you know the content truly reflects your organization’s unique message and calling? Todd Nettleton, Vice President of Message and Host of VOM Radio, and Cheryl Odden, Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor, at The Voice of the Martyrs will discuss principles and tools they employ at VOM to ensure the monthly magazine and other flagship media retain the unique message and calling of the organization. They will also address potential pitfalls that can derail an organization from its message.
Integrating a Biblical Worldview in the Words You Write (panel)
Naomi Balk, moderator | Assistant Director, World Journalism Institute
Mary Reichard | Co-host, World Radio
Warren Smith | President, MinistryWatch
Michael Ryan | Executive Editor, The Lion
In an age where biblical values are under attack and the media is largely left-leaning, not conforming to the pattern of this world is easier said than done. Join this session to hear from experienced writers and reporters on how they incorporate a biblical worldview in their daily work and writing. They will examine the question, “How does Scripture guide the topics I cover and the lens I use?” and share what they have learned throughout their professional journeys.
Transforming Christian Publications: Embracing digital strategies for evangelism and discipleship
Amber Weigand-Buckley | Editor, Leading Hearts
In an era where digital media transcends traditional church boundaries, Christian publications are uniquely positioned to serve as vital resources for evangelism, discipleship, and community outreach. This workshop delves into the paradigm shift necessary for publications to effectively support the evolving needs of the church and individuals, both now and in anticipation of future challenges. Discover how your publication can transcend traditional boundaries to become a dynamic force for evangelism and discipleship in the digital age. We will explore strategies that have empowered churches across the Asia Pacific region and learn how to implement these approaches to meet the evolving needs of the local, national and global church and its communities.
What you will learn:
• Strategic content development: Learn to craft mission-driven content that addresses the spiritual and practical needs of diverse audiences, including those who may never enter a physical church.
• Evangelism and discipleship: Explore innovative digital strategies employed by churches in the Asia-Pacific region and discover how to adapt these methods to enhance your publication’s outreach and educational impact.
• Navigating censorship and diversification: Understand the importance of diversifying content across multiple media platforms to safeguard against censorship and ensure the continuous dissemination of truth.
• Sustainable nission-focused publishing: Gain insights into building resilient publication models that prioritize mission over monetization, ensuring long-term relevance and impact.
Credibility: Bullet-proofing your content
Michael Ray Smith | Journalism Professor
Distorted news is as old as the twisted roads of the ancient world, and it goes by many names. News manipulation. False news. Disinformation. Misinformation. Information pollution. Rumors. Propaganda. This session will explore models for making double-sure the news content is accurate. This session will explore remedies for making your news accurate.
10x Better AI Output with Prompt Engineering
Dustin Stout | Founder/CEO, Magai
In this eye-opening session, you’ll discover why most people are getting mediocre results from AI tools and the exact framework that will transform your AI interactions from frustrating to fantastic. You’ll walk away with insider techniques that will immediately 10x your AI output quality, whether you’re crafting articles, generating research, or creating compelling content that resonates with your audience.
What you will learn:
• Context creates champions: Learn why feeding the AI the full picture transforms mediocre outputs into masterpieces.
• Personas pack power: Discover how assigning specific roles to AI unlocks laser-focused, expert-level content
• Progress needs patience: Master the art of iterative prompting to polish your AI outputs to perfection
• Probe for precision: See how simple follow-up questions can surface surprising insights and fill critical content gaps
Promoting Your Writing Using the COPE Method
Adrienne Wartts | Content Strategist, Writer, Editor
In this workshop, attendees will learn about the COPE (Create Once, Publish Everywhere) Method, a distribution strategy that allows content creators to publish segments of their work across multiple platforms. The COPE Method simplifies content management, ensure consistent messaging, and helps writers, publishers, and content producers expand their target audience.
What you will learn:
• How to publish a single message across multiple platforms
• How to repurpose content for maximum exposure
• How to reach a broader target audience
How to Write Book Reviews for People Who Won’t Read the Book
George P. Wood | Executive Editor, Influence Magazine
It’s a sad fact of publishing that most people who read book reviews do not go on and read the book reviewed. Given that fact, what are book reviews for, and how can you write reviews that nonetheless add value to readers? Those are the questions George Wood, who has reviewed more than 800 books and was rated a Top 500 Reviewer on Amazon, will address.
What you will learn:
• How to identify your audience
• How to summarize a book’s message
• How to affirm/critique a book’s message in light of your audience’s concerns
• How to give your review a wider reading
The Seven Deadly Sins of Publication Design
Steve Lopez | Designer, Influence Magazine
Perhaps it’s a clever concept gone awry. A technical boo-boo. Or simply a disregard for good design basics. Whatever the reason, design “sins” happen. No one wants a print publication that’s lackluster, chaotic, or hard to read. In this session we’ll discover how to recognize and rectify common design mistakes.
What you will learn:
• How skillful use of layout, type, and visuals can help you avoid “deadly” design errors
• How skillful use of layout, type, and visuals can enable you to create engaging, professional-looking, and reader-friendly print publications
What’s Evangelical about Evangelical Press? Publishing with conviction
Josh Mann | Editor, The Lion
Publications have publishers, and publishers have perspectives. Here’s a biblical case for why and how evangelicals should publish with conviction (or perspective) in a world that feigns neutrality.
What you will learn:
• Consider the difference between neutrality and fairness and how the two might be balanced in writing and publishing.
• Interrogate how the Bible might challenge or affirm some of our modern writing, journalism and publishing conventions.
• Understand how to hold forth Christian convictions in a world where they are not always welcome.
Revision Strategies that Work
Lisa Crayton | Freelance Writer and Editor
Some writers and editors dread revision, others fully enjoy shaping a project until it sings. This workshop centers revising to meet readers’ needs and helps identity common micro and macro content development issues. In addition to self-editing, it addresses working as a collaborative team (writers and editors), how to revise based on editorial feedback, and how to address writers’ concerns about revisions. Includes suggestions for balancing projects in varying stages of development to maximize time management and meet deadlines.
From Stats to Story: Making numbers come alive to engage your audience
Lee Pitts | Executive Director, World Journalism Institute; Associate Professor of Communication, Dordt University
Stories should not come from staring at statistics on screens. Numbers never narrate. Come and learn how data can be transformed into a story by walking through the reporting and writing process behind chronicling the journey of a wounded war veteran. Highlighting his goal to walk again shows how journalists can take data that enters a reader’s mind and spin it into a story that penetrates a reader’s heart.
What you will learn:
• News judgment
• Reporting – Interviewing/Observation
• Story structure
• Writing to be read|
• Lead writing
Strategies for Storytelling: Now and in the future
Emily Gehman | Professor of English and Communication, Grace Christian University
We all love good stories—reading them and writing them. But God’s work will continue long after we’ve hung up our reporting hats. Who will tell those stories? Start by tuning up your own skills. Refresh and deepen your storytelling with key strategies that highlight your organization’s mission and values. Discover practical tips for coaching the next generation of storytellers, using fresh research about the ways stories engage the brain. Learn to share the sacred call to storytelling by sharing your own story.
What you will learn:
• How to share your own stories more effectively
• How to identify and mentor new storytellers
When Words Fail: Writing through creative blocks
Lisa Crayton | Freelance Writer and Editor
There’s nothing like being in the creative zone, and words flow like rushing water. But what happens when words fail? What happens when creative blocks threaten idea creation, manuscript development, income generation and/or contract commitments? How can you write through those blocks? This workshop offers encouragement and inspiration for creatively stumped wordsmiths seeking to write again or recapture creative stamina and resilience. It identifies six common creative blocks and strategies for writing through them while trusting God’s purpose and plan for our creativity.
Canva Secrets: Effortless design for publications
Lora Campbell | Assistant Creative Producer, OMS Outreach
Unlock the power of graphic design with “”Canva Secrets: Effortless Design for Publications.”” This workshop will guide you through essential graphic design elements to captivate and engage your readers. Discover how to leverage Canva’s intuitive tools to streamline the design process, create on-brand publications, and produce visually stunning materials that resonate with your audience and have your work stand out.
What you will learn:
• Master design elements: Learn how to effectively use color, typography, and imagery to enhance storytelling and create a deep connection with your audience.
• Create cohesive on-brand publications: Understand how to craft a brand style guide that ensures consistency with your publication and facilitates collaboration among multiple team members on projects.
• Enhance workflow with bulk creation: Gain practical skills to design attractive workbooks, magazines, and multi-page publications utilizing Canva’s bulk create features to maximize efficiency and stay on-brand.
Dreamwork—Harnessing the Power of Creative Collaboration
Sarah Eshleman | Editor-in-Chief, Answers Magazine
We’ve heard that “teamwork makes the dream work.” But first, of course, we’ve got to figure out how to make the team work together. This session will explore how effective collaboration can hatch ideas that will engage and delight your readers—and strengthen your team along the way. Turns out teamwork can be dreamwork! Come prepared to get creative and have fun!
What you will learn:
• Ideas for inspiring creativity among their team—before the work gets started
• Tips for facilitating successful brainstorm sessions
• Suggestions for establishing rapport and building trust with their team members
Attendees will practice collaborating creatively on a small project
File Off the Rough Edges: How to edit a piece over the finish line
Diane McDougall | McDougall Editorial
Whether you’re finishing up your own article or editing someone else’s, you want to strengthen and polish it. What are the final steps you take to make it shine?
What you will learn:
• How to invite others to give you feedback
• 10 self-editing steps
Participants should bring an actual article that’s in-process.
Using Project Management to Collaborate Effectively
Rachel Forrest | Director of Content and Deputy Editor, The Voice of the Martyrs
Josh Smith | Director of Publishing Logistics, The Voice of the Martyrs
You planned strategically, gathered the content, and know what you will write about. Now how do you get it done? Josh Smith, Director of Publishing Logistics, and Rachel Forrest, Director of Content and Deputy Editor, at The Voice of the Martyrs will explain how they use ClickUp to manage tasks, facilitate communication, and encourage collaboration to create VOM’s monthly magazine and other media.
Design 101 for Non-Designers
Marianne Stewart | Stewart Art & Design
You’re not a designer, but design is a significant portion of your job duties (e.g. creating marketing materials, social graphics, media kits, etc.). This workshop teaches you the basic composition and design principles used by professional graphic designers and how to apply them to your own projects. You’ll also learn additional considerations when designing for print.
What you will learn:
You will leave this session equipped with an actionable checklist to self-critique your own work and the confidence to level-up your designs.
Don’t Let Technology Ruin Your Publication
Aaron Hanbury | Editor, Common Good
Social and moral panic about Internet-based and emerging technologies are well documented. Alarms ring from nearly every corner of American life, to be sure, but few areas seem as pressed as the journalism and media industry. But the usual boogiemen of the tech revolution — from simple social media aggregators and to fast-evolving A.I. language models — aren’t actually the threats most publication leaders need to worry about. The more pressing problem facing writers and editors is that the adoption of digital technologies and strategies force boring and flat work. Articles written for no real audience. Generic prose. Incoherent coverage areas.
But you don’t have to let it. In this session, we’ll catalog ways in which Internet-based publishing has a tendency to strip publications of their distinctives and personality, weigh the gains and losses of certain digital publishing strategies, and imagine ways good editorial work can push back against front-of-mind threats such as generative A.I. tools.
In this session, we’ll…
• Catalog ways in which Internet-based publishing has a tendency to strip publications of their distinctives and personality
• Weigh the gains and losses of certain digital publishing strategies
• Imagine ways good editorial work can push back against front-of-mind threats such as generative A.I. tools
Managing Data and Records
Marquita Smith | Associate Professor of Media and Communication, Univ of Mississippi
AI in the Newsroom
Marquita Smith
Global Christianity
Sam George | Diaspora Missiologist, Lausanne Movement; and director of the Global Diaspora Institute at Wheaton College
The Art of Interviewing
Erin Hayes | Journalism Professor, College of the Ozarks
Growing Ethnic Diversity in Christian Publishing (2 parts)
Joyce Dinkins | Director, Publishing in Color
David Dinkins