Sister Wendy (1930-2018) was a Carmelite nun, consecrated virgin and art historian who became world famous in the 1990s when she presented a series of BBC documentaries on the history of painting. She was the author of over thirty books on Christian art, including the internationally bestselling The Story of Painting. Her most recent books include The Art of Lent, The Art of Advent and Sister Wendy’s 100 Best-loved Paintings.

Cheryl Bachelder is the former CEO of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., a multibillion-dollar chain of more than 2,600 restaurants around the world. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, been featured on Mad Money, and received top industry awards. She had prior leadership positions at Yum! Brands, Domino's Pizza, RJR Nabisco, the Gillette Company, and Procter & Gamble. Today Cheryl serves on a number of boards including the CEO Forum, an organization that encourages and disciples Christian CEOs and senior leaders. Cheryl holds a Bachelor’s and Master's of Business Administration degree from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Christen Price moved from the Midwest to Washington, DC eleven years ago. Christen is a human rights lawyer who works to influence courts and legislatures toward protecting human dignity and equality for sexual exploitation survivors, through legislative advocacy and litigation, particularly with respect to sex trafficking, prostitution, child sexual abuse, and pornography. She attends an Anglican Church on Capitol Hill, where she serves on the parish council. She received her JD from Georgetown University Law Center, and a BA in philosophy from Cedarville University.

Christina Bieber Lake is the Clyde S. Kilby professor of English at Wheaton College where she teaches classes in contemporary American literature and literary theory. Her most recent books include The Flourishing Teacher: Vocational Renewal for a Sacred Profession and Beyond the Story: American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism. The Pre-school Retreat and Master Class she designed for teaching faculty can be found online. Christina also coaches, consults, and occasionally blogs at christinabieberlake.com.

Tirzah Villegas is a painter and creator whose spiritual practices inform her art. Currently a student at Duke Divinity School, Tirzah is focusing on the study of a decolonized Christianity and aesthetic as it pertains to spiritual liberation and liberation practices. Before deciding to attend divinity school, Tirzah had an array of jobs that inform her current theological lens, some of which include bartending, hog farming, youth workforce development, program director for a necessity-driven entrepreneur nonprofit, and interpreting. She is most interested in creating spaces that allow for people across a variety of spiritual disciplines to engage in spiritual practices that offer liberation from imperialist and colonialist structures. You can see more of her work online at Patreon and on Instagram.

Julie Newberry is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Her research focuses on Luke-Acts, joy, the intersection of intertextuality and embodiment in the New Testament, and the reception of the New Testament in English literature. Julie completed her doctoral studies at Duke in the spring of 2020, having written a dissertation about the conditions that lead to joy in Luke's Gospel. She attends Church of the Savior (ACNA) in Wheaton (via Zoom), even as she remains connected (also by Zoom) to Blacknall Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), her longtime church home in Durham, North Carolina. Julie has two dogs and enjoys very strong coffee, peanut butter, and sunshine. 

Marlita Hill teaches artists how their faith and art thrive together in church ministry and career life. She is the author of the book series Dancers! Assume the Position. She produces a weekly podcast called The Kingdom Art Life, and she is the creator of The Kingdom Artist Initiative, a discipleship program for artists working in “secular” culture. She also runs the Artist Prayer Collective, in partnership with The Salvation Army, Hollywood, and serves as the Associate Director for Edge Project, a missions organization focused on art, culture, and faith.

She is also a working artist. She has been a dancer, teacher, and choreographer for over 20 years. Her art life started in ministry in 1993 with The Hush Company, a Los Angeles based dance ministry directed by Stacy Meadows and LaQuin Snowden. After eight years there, she went on to earn her BFA in Dance Performance and Education (Towson University, MD), co-founded a dance program at a performing arts high school in downtown Los Angeles (where she taught for seven years), and started her own dance company, Speak Hill Dance Project.

Kimberly Hill specializes in African American history and Black internationalism. She has taught at the University of Texas at Dallas since 2014 with a previous appointment at Del Mar College. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008, with missions related coursework from Dr. Grant Wacker at Duke Divinity School. A Higher Mission is her first book, and she has published chapters in the following books: Africa Bears Witness, Alabama Women, and Faith and Slavery in the Presbyterian Diaspora.

An independent filmmaker and photographer based out of North Carolina, Renée has worked in locations around the US as well as abroad in Finland where she directed and filmed Sisareni, her first international collaboration. Inspired by the work of Andrei Tarkovsky and the films of Bergman and Bresson, the content of her work is primarily experimental and explores the connection between human nature and the divine. 

Currently, Renée is serving as the monastic intern at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York until August 2021. 

She holds a Masters in Theological Studies with a Certificate in Theology and the Arts from Duke Divinity School and a Bachelors of Arts in Cinema and Television from Regent University.