Renaissance exists to serve artists, resource churches, and renew culture through creativity and the gospel. Every program and initiative is designed to build connection, provide formation, and create pathways for artists to thrive both spiritually and vocationally. From regional gatherings and creative cohorts to pop-up outreaches, workshops, and studio projects, Renaissance is cultivating spaces where creativity and mission meet. These initiatives represent the early foundations of a growing national movement: one that equips artists, empowers churches, and reawakens imagination across Canada.
Care, outreach & formation.
Our work runs through artist care, outreach, and theological education. Each initiative is a different doorway into the same thing: artists encountering Jesus, and communities restored through the work of their hands.
Studio
2026–27 cohort- Format
- Closed, year-long cohort
- Co-directors
- Jess Sanchez & Karina Clarence
- Atelier coaches
- Amber Bent & Phenix Warren
Our artist cohort, and currently Renaissance’s main gathering.
Studio is a closed, year-long cohort built around discipleship and spiritual formation for Christian artists — a lead team of artist-coaches across photography, fine art, and music, guest speakers, and sustained time together.
Creative Drop-In
Calgary · Edmonton- Partners
- Calgary Dream Centre · DYC · Youth Rise
- Led by
- Volunteer artists
Our mobile creative studio, on mission in the places people already gather.
Volunteer artists teach art through the lens of faith, creating space for conversation, discipleship, and restorative work through the arts. We’ve seen it change the room: at the Calgary Dream Centre, men who wanted nothing to do with art came to fully embrace it.
Current partnerships include the Calgary Dream Centre, DYC, and Youth Rise in Edmonton, where we’re expanding our drop-in and restorative arts programming for students.
The Well
Launching soonA gathering for artists, launching soon.
The Well is a place for creatives to come together, be refreshed, and draw from something deeper than their own reserves — community for the long creative life.
Northern Initiatives
Northwest Territories- Project
- Project Heritage
Serving communities in the Northwest Territories.
At the heart of it is Project Heritage: the restoration of a historic Radium-class heritage boat into an artist hub, with residency space, studios, and public exhibition areas — a place where northern artists can make work, host their communities, and be met with care.
Theology & Education
Workshops · CoursesOur growing educational work.
Workshops, courses, and an Alpha-inspired series for artists who want to understand the Christian faith. It also includes Sacred Image, our documentary series tracing how the Church and the arts have shaped one another across the centuries.
Renaissance Creative Leadership Podcast
Listen nowConversations on creativity, leadership, and the arts.
Equipping artists and leaders to think deeply about their craft and their calling.
Sacred Image
Every window was a sermon.
A short documentary series on art, architecture, and the Church. Hosted by Jess Sanchez, each three-to-five-minute episode traces how the Church and the arts have shaped one another — from the first images painted in the catacombs, to the light of the Gothic cathedrals, to the question facing the Church today.
Subscribe on YouTube
Different doorways, one invitation: artists met where they already are, and walked with for as long as it takes.