Pastors & Staff

Linda Alley

Pastoral Care Coordinator
Mission Campus

Paula Benefiel

Preschool Director
Antioch Campus

Paula has served as director of the Antioch Campus Preschool since August 2005. She grew up in Shawnee, Kansas and attended Shawnee Mission Northwest High School. She received her B.A. in Elementary Education with an emphasis in special education from Pittsburg State University.

Her philosophy in early childhood education is teaching children to think creatively so they may succeed in an ever-changing world. Paula notes that purposeful play is developmentally appropriate and a significant element of any early childhood program.

Paula has three adult children, Taylor, Kyle, and Katie, and a couple of adorable pups that keep her on her toes.

Dr. Elisa Bickers

Co-Director of Music; Principal Organist
Mission Campus

Dr. Elisa Williams Bickers is the Principal Organist and co-director of music at the Mission campus of Village Presbyterian Church, where she leads the Alegría Adult Choir and the Village Ringers hand bell ensemble. Her favorite things about her role at Village are the people and the music, in that order. She delights in the church’s Richards, Fowkes & Co. pipe organ, leading a fabulous music staff, and collaborating to plan meaningful worship services and powerful concerts.
Additionally, she is the keyboardist for the Bach Aria Soloists, a Kansas City chamber music ensemble devoted to performing the works of Bach and composers inspired by him. She performs regularly in recital as a solo organist, harpsichordist, and accompanist, and has served on the faculties of the UMKC Conservatory and Washburn University as instructor of organ and harpsichord.

Bickers has performed world-wide as a solo and collaborative organist and harpsichordist. She has worked with such musical groups as the Te Deum Chamber Ensemble, the Spire Chamber Ensemble, and the Grammy award-winning Kansas City Chorale, as well as the Kansas City Symphony. Her degrees in church music and organ performance are from Texas Christian University and the University of Kansas. She holds the Fellowship certificate from the American Guild of Organists, the Guild’s highest certification.

As an organ recitalist, Bickers is represented by Concert Artist Cooperative.

When not making music, she can be found happily covered in dirt working in her vegetable garden.

Nathan Bliss

A/V Coordinator; Co-Director of Music for The Gathering
Mission Campus

Nathan moved to Overland Park from Philadelphia in high school and attended Shawnee Mission North. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston’s prestigious Berklee College of Music with a dual bachelor’s degree in jazz composition and saxophone performance. Soon after, he completed the Master Recording Program II at the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in Tempe, Arizona and moved to Los Angeles where he worked in recording studios and taught himself to play guitar.

Nathan met his wife Becky in 2005 after college and both eventually moved to Brooklyn, got married, and started the indie folk band, Barnaby Bright. After the release of their first full-length album in 2009, they began touring extensively all over the world, playing roughly 150 shows a year. After six years of steady touring, releasing three full-length albums, winning several international songwriting awards and gracing such notable stages as Lincoln Center and NPR’s Mountain Stage, they returned to Kansas City and were thrilled to accept the position as musical directors for The Gathering, an alternative worship service at 5 p.m. Sundays in Friendship Hall at the Village Church Mission Campus.

Nathan and Becky live in Prairie Village with their newborn daughter Everly and two rescue cats from Brooklyn, Lenny and Booger Cookie. Nathan is teaching private music lessons and is also the AV Coordinator for Village.

Becky Bliss

Co-Director of Music for The Gathering
Mission Campus

Becky grew up at Village Church and attended Shawnee Mission East, followed by the University of Kansas where she studied opera and graduated with a degree in vocal performance. She met her husband Nathan in 2005 after college and both eventually moved to Brooklyn, got married, and started the indie folk band, Barnaby Bright. After the release of their first full-length album in 2009, they began touring extensively all over the world, playing roughly 150 shows a year. After six years of steady touring, releasing three full-length albums, winning several international songwriting awards and gracing such notable stages as Lincoln Center and NPR’s Mountain Stage, they returned to Kansas City and were thrilled to accept the position as musical directors for The Gathering, an alternative worship service at 5 p.m. Sundays in Friendship Hall at the Village Church Mission Campus.

Becky and Nathan currently live in Prairie Village with their newborn daughter Everly and two rescue cats from Brooklyn, Lenny and Booger Cookie.

Brooke Brundige

Director of Children & Family Ministry
Mission Campus

Madeline Chamberlain

Designer & Website Manager
Mission Campus

Chuck Chamberlin

Systems Administrator
Mission Campus

Dennis Cobb

Food Pantry & Clothes Closet Director

Kristin Dillon

Director of Human Resources
Mission Campus

Kevin Dolan

Lighthouse (Children’s Ministry) Worship Leader
Mission Campus

Faith Fields

Youth Ministry Coordinator
Mission Campus

Faith is a graduate of Hannibal-LaGrange University where she played collegiate soccer and also on their newspaper staff. She received her degree in PR Communications in 2021. With her remaining year of eligibility for soccer she went to play for Fresno Pacific University in California and started her Masters in Strategic and Organizational Leadership. She returned back home to Kansas City during the summer of 2022 and is still missing the California weather. In Faith’s free time she enjoys reading, trips to the lake, and getting outdoors with her dogs.

Seretha Fisher

Child Care Office Manager
Mission Campus

Lora Garrison

Director of International Mission
Mission Campus

Ellen Gatewood

Young Adult Coordinator
Mission Campus

Rev. Melanie Hardison

Pastor of Pastoral Care
Mission Campus

Rev. Melanie Hardison comes from a long line of Presbyterians and has been ordained as a minister of word and sacrament as well as an elder and a deacon. She describes Village as “a place of warm hospitality, thoughtful engagement and hopeful authenticity.”

A graduate of Agnes Scott College and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Melanie earned a dual degree in seminary: the Master of Divinity and the Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy. Prior to graduate school, she served as a program manager at the national level of the Presbyterian Church (USA) for 15 years. With experience as a therapist and hospital chaplain, Melanie is passionate about end of life care, grief and bereavement work, and spiritual practices.

Some of her favorite time is spent twirling around a dance floor doing the two-step, west coast swing, ballroom or country line dance. When she can’t be on the dance floor, Melanie enjoys deep conversation, growing vegetables, fruits, and flowers, hiking, traveling and any opportunity to laugh so hard she cries.