Pastors & Staff

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.

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 modern worship service at Village Church.

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

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 modern worship service at Village Church.

Nathan and Becky live in Prairie Village with their 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.

Kevin Dolan

Lighthouse (Children’s Ministry) Worship Leader
Mission Campus

Bonny Green

Music Ministry Coordinator
Mission Campus

Dr. Langston Hemenway

Director of Village Brass & the Kansas City Wind Symphony
Mission Campus

Dr. Hemenway is director of Village Brass. He also serves as the director of instrumental studies at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. He earned his doctorate in instrumental conducting from the University of Michigan, his masters in conducting from the University of Kansas, and his bachelors in music education from the University of Oklahoma. Before being hired in summer 2021, Langston was already a beloved part of the Village family for his visionary and dynamic leadership of the all-volunteer Kansas City Wind Symphony, a Village Arts Alliance ensemble.

Helen Hofmeister

Music Associate
Mission Campus

Jenny Hull

Director of Child & Family Development Center

Children’s Music Coordinator
Mission Campus

Jenny Hull is the coordinator of Morning Stars, the Village Church Children’s Music and Worship program. She has been leading the oldest children’s choir since 2008. A cellist, Jenny received her undergraduate degree in music from Illinois State University in 1995. She received her Master’s in Education from the University of Kansas in 2002. After her children were born, she became a certified Kindermusik instructor, and started her work with Village Church in the music department, directing the children’s choir.

In 2007, Jenny began working at the Village Church Child and Family Development Center, where she now serves as director.  She also teaches preschool music classes and directs Village’s yearly drama camp for elementary students each summer.

Jenny and her husband Brad live in Overland Park with their two children, Brady and Katie.

Dr. Jan Kraybill

Principal Organist
Antioch Campus

GRAMMY-nominated artist Jan Kraybill (DMA, FAGO) is a musical leader and dynamic speaker; a concert organist, pianist, and harpsichordist; an educator, church musician, and consultant; and an enthusiastic advocate for the power of music to change lives for the better.

In addition to maintaining a very active concert schedule, Dr. Kraybill is organ conservator at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, USA, organist-in-tesidence at the international headquarters of Community of Christ in Independence, Missouri; and organist at Village on Antioch Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Overland Park, Kansas. She plays and oversees the care of the Kansas City metro area’s three largest pipe organs: at Community of Christ, the Auditorium’s 113-rank Aeolian-Skinner (installed in 1959) and the Temple’s 102-rank Casavant (1993), and at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall, the 102-rank Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant (2012).

Dr. Kraybill’s degrees in music education and piano and organ performance were earned at Kansas State University and the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 2010 she achieved the distinction of Fellow of the AGO, organists’ highest certification level. She has served in many local, regional and national roles in the AGO, The Hymn Society and the Master Teacher Institute, most recently as executive director of The Hymn Society in the U.S. and Canada. She is a member of Mensa. Her extra-musical interests include antiquing, lace making and riding her Harley-Davidson with her husband, Allan.

Photo courtesy of Floyd Gingrich.

Paul Lemon

Reception & Operations Coordinator
Youth Band Director
Mission Campus

Dr. Joshua Maize

Co-Director of Music Ministry
Mission Campus

Joshua Maize (DMA) is a conductor, vocalist and teacher in the Kansas City area. He is co-director of music ministry at Village Presbyterian Church, where he directs the principal adult chorus, the Village Choir, as well as the Village Chamber Choir and Village Voices youth choir.

Joshua holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and a doctor of musical arts degree in choral conducting from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance and a master’s degree in musicology and church music from the University of Kansas. He was an Ellen Battell Stoeckel Vocal Fellow at Yale University. Joshua has worked in Presbyterian and Episcopal congregations in Missouri, Kansas and Texas where he has established and grown choral and instrumental ensembles for people of all ages. He has served on faculty at the Conservatory of Music and Dance (UMKC) and currently serves as the sub-dean for the Greater Kansas City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

He has worked extensively as a choral conductor and vocalist, performing throughout the United States and Europe. Joshua has appeared on the rosters of the Norfolk Chamber Choir, Spire Chamber Choir and Te Deum Chamber Choir. He is a member of the American Choral Directors’ Association, Association of Anglican Musicians, the Presbyterian Association of Musicians, the Royal School of Church Music and the American Guild of Organists.

Dr. Aaron Redburn

Director of Music Ministry & Faith Formation
Antioch Campus

Dr. Aaron Redburn first came to the Village Church Antioch Campus to serve as tenor section leader in 2021, and became director of music and family ministries at the Antioch Campus in August of 2024. His wife, Dr. Shannon Redburn, came in as soprano section leader. Aaron and Shannon met after high school, rehearsing for a show at Shawnee Mission Theatre in the Park, and have since performed countless musicals and operas together. They have been heard around the country, on the international stage and as guests on NPR. They now share a daughter, Rosemary, and a soon-to-be-born son.

A passionate musician, educator and composer, Aaron holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts and a Master of Music from the University of Memphis and earned his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. Prior to this position, Aaron was a professor of music at Avila University, Visible Music College and the University of Memphis. The Redburns join Village Presbyterian Church from the congregation of Germantown Presbyterian Church in Memphis, where they served in both children’s and music ministries.

RuthAnn Wagoner

Staff Accompanist & Assistant Director of Music
Antioch Campus

RuthAnn Wagoner joined Village Presbyterian Church in the fall of 2022. She now serves as assistant director of music ministry at the Antioch Campus.

Born and raised in Kansas City, RuthAnn graduated in 2012 with a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. RuthAnn recently retired from her 10-year position as choir accompanist at Lee’s Summit High School. She has also accompanied for various musicals around the metro, including Theater in the Park and the Barn Players Theatre. She has also taught piano to kids and adults off and on throughout the years in her home.