As an Education Minister now for going on 7 years, I haven't yet been able to find a good conference just for ministers who serve in Education roles. I have to go to different conferences specifically for preachers and youth ministers and apply those things to my teaching every week. I'm finally back to teaching an adult class every week, and I also work with the kids here at Graymere on the other side of the spectrum.

I went in to Better: Southeast knowing that I would need to filter some things for myself. Some things that were directed at preaching every week would need to be applied to me teaching every week. And it was a valuable exercise. While I do not have the rigor of preaching every Sunday, and the things that go along with being a preacher every Sunday, I am a teacher every Sunday and minister to the people in this congregation.

Suffice to say, it was a great experience to be at Better, both from the fellowship standpoint but also from the practical standpoint. I was able to take away quite a bit not just about preaching and teaching, but ministry as a whole.

Dale and Jeff Jenkins were able to line up some very adept speakers for this conference, and the content was dynamic. Here's just a few notes from a selection of the speakers. Not a comprehensive list of the entire conference, but here's what I found helpful as an Education Minister.

Jeff Jenkins opened with ten things we should do to plan our preaching. Jeff said that he has a yearly plan of what he's going to preach every calendar year, planned out for twelve months. My takeaway: As a class teacher and minister on staff, I have flexibility where some others would not. I came away from this talk inspired to plan a 12-month "Personal Teaching Calendar." I have never had difficulty in finding things to teach, only picking what I should teach next. This will help me be better organized and plan for 2022 - something I haven't been able, like so many others, to plan in a couple of years.

Doug Burleson talked about Being an Effective Textual Preacher, which may have been the most informative and practical session of the entire conference for me personally. My takeaway: It translated well to a full-time Bible teacher, and it further reinforced my recent thinking on not just being better prepared when I teach, but being accurate and representing the text better when I teach. Meaning does not change in Scripture, but application will vary.

Dr. Bruce McClarty, former president at Harding University, taught us on remaining true to the Word of God. I have heard Dr. McClarty very few times, but this lesson did not disappoint. My takeaway: A quote from Bruce said it best:

"We won't be perfect, but we must be genuine. We need to share a piece of our God-touched soul every week."

Chuck Monan was a treat to hear. I had never heard him speak before, and he spoke to us about Preacher Failings. He had six simple things that he illustrated wonderfully and sometimes humorously: 1) Don't bore people to distraction, 2) Don't wear people out with Greek, 3) Don't mangle pronunciations, 4) Don't be hypocritical, 5) Don't neglect doctrine, and 6) Don't be afraid. I found it entertaining as it was powerful and practical to hear.

Lastly, Craig Evans talked about starting a new work. Craig has started several new works in his ministry career, most notably his last at Mt. Juliet Church of Christ here in Tennessee. But Craig quickly moved from the topic to a more broad discussion of things that every minister should do (in my opinion), when starting a new work or even ones established in ministries. He said a lot, but here's a mostly complete list:

• Before you start, do your research!!
• Call the previous minister! (25+ years)
• Try out sermon: preach like YOU
• Get WRITTEN EXPECTATIONS - job desc, financial, time off, etc.
• Am I going to be a hireling or one of the sheep?

• "If you don't heal what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you"

• First, work on your relationship with God

• Make WISDOM your constant prayer request
• Spend time with people - from the smallest child to the oldest member
• Ask: what is our vision? (Elders, Deacons, Staff)
• Spending time with leadership/staff outside of meetings
• Let people know you care: hospitals and funerals
• Listen more than you talk
• Pray for people when you listen (How can I pray for you this week?)
• Pray for people in their presence
• Our job is to be focused on souls
• "Connection before correction" - friends speak in love
• Be slow to make changes at a new work (wrecking ball, not a builder)
• You cannot be a minister at two churches at the same time
• Focus on your family
• Set healthy boundaries (hours worked)
• Get physically healthy (shows self-discipline)
• Ask: Am I missing something? (Find someone to help you, a mentor)
• You need a core group of friends
• Pace yourself as you start (one new sermon a week, one old sermon per week)
• Help people to love God's Word more
• Don't know what to preach? Preach about Jesus! (Sermon on the Mount)

Overall, I was refreshed and renewed coming away from Better. If I could say one thing, it would be to encourage every minister in every role (pulpit, education, youth, etc.) to find a conference like this to attend. Personally, I needed this. I needed to be a part of a conference I didn't have to help plan (we have two here at Graymere I help plan), and I needed some energy back in my batteries, so to speak.

Many thanks to Jeff and Dale Jenkins for their hard work putting this on, and for Heritage Christian in Florence for hosting.

I was honored last year when Michael Whitworth approached me about a special book he was putting together called Thoughts From The Mound, a collection of writings by Jeff Jenkins. I was thrilled and honored when he asked me to design the cover. 

He wanted something simple, and actually used the phrase "maybe one of those comfy chairs overlooking some rolling hills." I was happy to oblige. 

Photography normally isn't my strong suit, so in order to make the cover as great as possible, I need to make technology work for me. 

I start out with sheer volume. I shot over 60 photos for the cover and picked only one. Professionals would actually shoot a lot more, perhaps hundreds of shots before settling on one that they could use. Overall, I took just over 100 total photos from about 3 different views. 

Location and time of day were extremely important as well. Whereas some photographers would be able to shoot in a variety of different types of weather, I realize that I'm not that good - neither at Photoshop or at shooting in variable weather. I wait for a clear day before I go shoot. 

The location happned to be in a church member's front yard, so it worked out for me to stay there and do what I needed to do that afternoon for as long as I needed. The chair was actually the church secretary's. The Bible on the edge of the chair was mine. 

The photos were shot using a standard 18-55mm lens on a Canon D3100. The original resolution was 4608 x 3072 and I shot in RAW+JPEG format. There are lots of benefits to shooting in RAW that I won't go into, but basically you shoot with all the data available to you to edit later. Much larger photos in size, but you get all that data to work with. This is a great thing especially if you know you're going to take something into Photoshop. 

I took a variety of shots stooping, sitting, and standing. I didn't fiddle with light settings too much at all, and I let the camera and its auto-focus do most of the work. 

One of my fallacies in shooting photography is to want to compose the actual cover in my shot while I'm shooting. What I mean by that is I'm trying to frame the cover and make it look like the final product while I'm shooting. You're not supposed to do this, but I did anyways. Given the fact that I only had one lens, I pretty much had to. 

I wanted to compose the cover with the chair facing what would be the spine of the book. I don't know if this a rule or not, but it seems to be a good one. 

After shooting the photos I take them into Photoshop. This is where the transformation begins. I make sure to set my canvas to the appropriate size and resolution (in this case 5.5 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall, CMYK mode for printing, at 300 dpi). After cropping to appropriate size, I first I run Unsharp Mask to make sure everything on the picture is as sharp as it can be. I then make a Levels Adjustment Layer and bring the levels on the photo up or down based on the Levels Histogram. This evens out brightness and contrast pretty well usually, and I don't have to fiddle with that anymore. 

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Next is color adjustment. I really want the hills to pop and be the most significant thing you see besides the title. I make a seperate Color Adjustment Layer and slighly adjust the hills to look more green. Not too much, since they're already very green anyways. 

The next thing I focus on is the blue sky. I use the Burn tool with a pretty high brush size (usually about 200 pixels or higher) in the Midtones range with an Exposure at 50%. I have "Protect Tones" checked while doing this. I lightly touch up the top of the sky just enough but not enough to interfere with the overall look. I've already decided the title is going to go in the top left. 

I then work on the blur at the bottom right. I didn't need the blur to be obvious, I actually needed it to be subtle enough that you could ignore it. Jeff's author title will go here, so I need you to see the bottom of the chair but not be distracted by the detail of the chair. I use the Blur tool and a big brush to get the desired effect that I want. The Blur tool will layer on top of the effect you just made, so making the blur on top of another blur will just intensify that blur. I make sure the blur is most intense at the corner and work out. 

Titling comes last. I used the font PerpetuaTitlingMT Light and varied the sizes in the title to make sure it was a well-designed layout. Simple and effective. I place a very subtle Drop Shadow under the text (about 4 pixels distance). 

After saving into a variety of formats (PNG, JPEG, PDF) I send it to Michael. Cover is done. 

So I hope you've enjoyed this step-by-step process for designing a book cover. I'd designed covers before, but never for a publication and never with my own photography. I think it turned out pretty great.