Conversations

Jon Klinepeter
Jon Klinepeter spent eight years on staff at Willow Creek as a worship leader for Student Impact and as a member of the Programming Department for Weekend and New Community services. He then felt called to be a part of a church plant in his neighborhood in Chicago, where he served as Worship Leader and Executive Pastor for five years. In 2007 he left The Church of Wrigleyville to join the staff of Change Effect, a branding, marketing and culture firm in Chicago which specializes in helping non-profit organizations more effectively communicate their stories. In September of 2008 Jon, his wife Christina and their two boys, Gabe and WIll, moved up to Minneapolis to be a part of an exciting church community called Upper Room, where he services as the Director of Worship and Spiritual Formation.

Kimberly MacNeill
Kimberly MacNeill is the Pastor of Spiritual Formation at Clovis Hills Community Church in California. Partnering Worship Arts and Discipleship Ministries together creates opportunity for imagination and creativity to be a more integral part of the spiritual formation in the lives of people. Serving at Clovis Hills for 15 years, Kimberly fulfills the roles of lead worshipper, teaching pastor, executive producer of weekend services, and a member of the executive team. She recently graduated from Bethel Seminary with a Masters of Divinity. She and her husband Dave have been married for 13 years and enjoy serving the Lord as a team.

Mark Richard
Mark is one of the founding pastors of Bandera Road Community Church in San Antonio, Texas. He has been leading the arts ministries from the earliest days at BRCC. He has developed and coached emerging arts leaders, and built teams that have thrived over the 17 years of the church's existence.

Marlinda Ireland
Marlinda Ireland a worship leader and directs the arts ministries of Christ Church—a thriving, five thousand member fellowship in Montclair, New Jersey. She is an award winning song writer; has produced and recorded two worship albums; authored the book What Is God Waiting For?; and led the church's music ministry in an appearance at New York's prestigious Lincoln Center. Marlinda and her husband David are the parents of two children, Danielle and Jessica.

Meg Tomko
Meg is the Program Director for Orchard Hill Church, an interdenominational church located in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While serving as a vocalist on the Orchard Hill Music Team for 12 years, her career background was in the medical field as an Administrative Director of Laboratory Services. In 2001, Meg was privileged to join the church staff and combine a passion for the arts with her management experience to direct the organization, planning and production of the worship services. Meg is also responsible overseeing church communication, publications, and website.

Mike Harris
Mike Harris is Founder and President of WaveMaker Ministries, a worship leading, teaching, coaching and consulting ministry. WMM helps leaders, churches, artists and ministries realize their full potential in worship and the arts. Serving in churches of 150 to 9,000 he has experienced firsthand the opportunities and challenges at every phase of the journey. Recently Mike joined Slingshot Group as an associate coach, consultant, clinician, mentor, speaker and search process advisor. Mike is also an associate with Third Quarter Consulting, an organization specializing in multi-site venues and church resources.

Mike is a graduate of Oral Roberts University and has done graduate studies at Fuller Seminary. Mike served as Worship Arts Pastor at Woodmen Valley Chapel in Colorado Springs for 10 years. Prior to that he served as the Worship and Fine Arts Pastor of Trinity Church in Lubbock, Texas for 10 years.

Mike is married to Brenda, his wife of 30 years. They have four children: Angela Gayfield, 29, Rebecca Parton, 27, Michael David, 18, and Jeoffrey Daniel, 16, and one grandchild, Alexis, 7.

Mitch Harrison
Mitch Harrison is the Pastor of Artist Community at Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. He currently oversees programming, production and communications, and serves as a teaching pastor. His primary responsibility is in directing the creative teams that design worship services and communications. He occasionally plays keyboards in the band and leads worship if every other option has been exhausted. Mitch is married and has three boys, and has served in full-time ministry for a long time.

Monty Kelso
Monty Kelso has excelled internationally at both directing creative church communications, and leading and designing worship and programming. A well-known and widely-admired Worship Leader at Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo, Calif., for many years, Monty possesses a combination of talents and skills as a Worship consultant, coach and mentor that are uncommon. Under his guidance, Coast Hills and many other churches have attained new levels of relevancy in their creative arts ministries, and have earned reputations for being highly culturally engaged within their communities.

In recent years, Monty has served as a clinician and consultant to numerous Worship and Arts conferences and entities, including the Christian Artists Seminar in the Rockies, Willow Creek Association, Christian Associates International, Campus Crusade, the Jesus Film project, Continental Ministries, Hope International University and National Outreach, Inc. From 1990 to 2002, he also worked as a worship leader and consultant for Maranatha! Music's worship leader workshops. He currently serves on the board of directors for The Grove Center For the Arts and Media: www.thegrovecenter.org and Worship Mentor Network: www.worshipmentor.com.

Rod Kaya
Bachelor of Arts Degree in (B.A.) in Speech from the University of Hawaii and Masters of Arts in Pastoral Studies (MAPS) from Azusa Pacific University. I have been a pastor in local churches for over 15 years & have been involved with worship experience programming for 20 years. Currently, I provide point leadership to our weekend worship services as its Programming Director and help provide directional leadership for the entire church – Journey Community Church in San Diego CA. I have been married to Tara for 10 years and have two children Rhett (5) & Emersen Kate (2)

Tony Kim
Tony Kim, New Song Church, Irvine, CA: Tony has served as a Creative Arts Pastor for over 10 years. A graphic designer by trade, Tony is passionate about the arts in the church. Tony's new role is as Creative Leadership Pastor. This new position is to help lead the over all creative leadership development and pioneering new expression for the arts - within the church and out. Tony loves to inspire and help others use their artist and leadership abilities to use their gifts in new ways within the church.

Chris Durso
Chris Durso is the youth director of Youth Explosion Ministries. The son of a Pastor and a husband and father himself, this 25 year old NYACK graduate has experienced enough of both the church and the world to understand the mentality of this culture and the language of their hearts. Taking the baton from his brother, Adam Durso, founder of Youth Explosion, Chris carries the same passion to reach a generation for Christ by any means necessary. His vision, "To change people’s perception on life so they can see that God is freedom and not religion or law."

Steve Young
Steve Young is the Director of Creative Arts at Renaissance Church in Summit, NJ. Renaissance is an exciting, fast-growing, church plant in the suburbs of New York City that primarily consists of Wall Street professionals, Broadway actors, and studio musicians. As a church leader, he has served on both coasts, in a variety of church settings--including one church of over 5000, and two start-up churches – one with only a dozen people at its inception. As a musician, he has performed and recorded with internationally known recording artists, and remains active as a producer, keyboard player, and arranger in the NYC area. He is also the founder of Arts Impact, a creative coaching ministry that serves churches and other creative organizations in the area of worship and the arts.

Jessica Anis
Jessica Anis has been the Producer for Casa de Luz - Willow Creek Community Church Hispanic Ministry since 2006. She is part of a small three person staff with an average weekly congregation of 400. A Willow Creek member since 2000, she began her role in the Hispanic ministry volunteering as a vocalist. Jessica is originally from Texas where she grew up in a small Hispanic church. Jessica and her husband currently reside in the Chicagoland area.

Corinne Ferguson
As a recording engineer and music producer in her early twenties, Corinne began volunteering at Willow Creek in 1984. After joining staff Corinne served for many years as executive producer of weekend services, special events, WCA conferences, The Leadership Summit, recording projects, and as the dance team and vocal team director. She transitioned from the Willow Creek staff to the Willow Creek Association in January of 2007 to focus full time on The Leadership Summit, serving as Executive Director/Executive Producer.

Greg Ferguson
As a singer, songwriter, and worship leader at Willow Creek, and as a creative idea generator on the Arts teams, Greg Ferguson has a 20-plus-year history of creating transformational experiences in Willow Creek services, events, and conferences. In January of 2007 Greg transitioned to the Willow Creek Association, where he serves as Co-Executive Producer, worship leader, vocalist, poet, video writer/co-producer, and idea generator for The Leadership Summit. As a session singer in the commercial music industry, Greg has sung on hundreds of sessions for advertising, records, and film soundtracks. He has recorded several CDs of original songs, the most recent being One Life. Prior CD releases include his first solo CD, Leave a Light On.

Deanna Kotrla
Deanna Kotrla has been programming services for Willow Creek for five years. She has helped create a variety of experiences from weekly worship services to special events. She began in her role at Willow in 2004 when she moved from the great state of Texas. She has a bachelor's degree in nursing which helps her in managing weekend service "emergencies". Deanna is raising two wonderful teens with her husband Bryan just a few minutes from the South Barrington campus.

Matt Wright
Matt Wright is the Worship Leader and Creative Arts Director for the North Shore Campus of Willow Creek Community Church. He had been leading worship and designing services for about 11 years around the south before coming to Willow Creek in 2007. He has the blessing of being married to the beautiful and talented Christa for more than 8 years and has two boys, Carter and Ethan.

Rory Noland
Rory Noland is the director of Heart of the Artist Ministries, an organization dedicated to serving artists in the church. Rory is the author of The Heart of the Artist: A Character-Building Guide For You and Your Ministry Team, Thriving as an Artist in the Church: Hope and Help For You and Your Ministry Team, and his latest book The Worshiping Artist: Equipping You and Your Ministry Team to Lead Others in Worship all published by Zondervan. Rory leads worship for the Transforming Center, a ministry that cares for the souls of pastors, and he also serves as Pastor of Worship at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Illinois.

Aubrey Wentz
Aubrey is the Producer of weekend services at the McHenry Regional. Her ability to see the big picture combined with her ability to facilitate the small details of creative ideas is a dynamic combination. She loves being able to partner with other artists; technical, musical, and visual, in an effort to draw others into the Throne Room of God. Her high energy and upbeat personality bring excitement and joy to this Regional team.

Aubrey graduated from North Park University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Music. At North Park she volunteered as a Student Worship Leader and loves being able to serve at McHenry as an alternate Worship Leader.

Aubrey was a long term volunteer at the McHenry Regional all through college, stepping in and out of part time staff roles in the areas of Administration and Assistant Producer. She joined the staff permanently in June of 2007.

Steve Myers
Steve has been a music director at Willow Creek Community Church for over eight years. He also scores the music for many of Willow's videos. His music education includes Indiana University (orchestral percussion), University of Miami, Coral Gables (music engineering) and DePaul University (jazz studies/arranging). Previous to joining the staff at Willow, Steve worked for 11 years as a composer/arranger/producer of music for radio, television, and corporate sponsored films at a Chicago area music production company. He continues to play drums for recording sessions and church services.

Tiley Frost
Tiley M. Frost is an international artist, designer, and successful business owner who helped pioneer the Visual Arts Ministry at Willow Creek over six years ago. Today she serves as director of the ministry and works to create a place where artists are encouraged to reflect God's love with their gifts and abilities. The Visual Arts Ministry supports many other ministries within Willow Creek and the Willow Creek Association, including Programming, Production, Communication Arts, and Global Connections.

Amy Anderson
Amy Anderson is the Executive Director of Worship Ministries at Eagle Brook Church. She's a graduate of Bethel College, where she received a degree in Marketing. And, after spending 10 years working in corporate America, Amy made the shift and went into ministry at her local church, Eagle Brook. For the past eight years, Amy has been leading the teams that bring the weekend services together, including music, creative, technical and production teams. She also serves on Eagle Brooks Leadership Team. Today, Eagle Brook is a multi-site church with campuses in Lino Lakes, White Bear Lake and Spring Lake Park, Minnesota.

Sandy Johnson
Sandy Johnson is currently the Programming Director at Prairie Lakes Church. She has a love for the church and a passion for building healthy artistic teams, forming strategy for transformational church ministry, and catalyzing proactive church leadership. She has had the privilege to launch many different creative arts teams over the years, including the start-up of full Programming and Production ministries for Willow Creek McHenry County, Willow Creek North Shore and the Casa de Luz (Spanish speaking) services at Willow Creek Community Church. She loves finding new ideas, listening for God's voice, and encouraging the emerging talents of artists...as well as sitting on the beach or perhaps even swimming with dolphins. She's been married twenty years and has two children (Alyssa, 11 and Scott, 9).

John Wasson
As a composer, producer, educator and worship leader, John Wasson seeks the total integration of art and worship into every aspect of life. He has created music for the Dallas Brass, the U. S. Air Force Band, and the Dallas Symphony, and his works appear in the catalogs of Hal Leonard, Alfred, Word Music and Praise Charts. John has taught seminars and courses in songwriting, the music industry, and arranging. As a low brass artist he previously performed and toured with the Woody Herman and Stan Kenton Orchestras. He currently serves as the Director of Worship at Our Savior Lutheran Church in McKinney, Texas, where he has committed himself to developing the next generation of worship leaders and artists.

Larry Dahlenburg
Larry is the executive producer for the Willow Creek Association. He produces conferences, training events, videos, and oversees a world-wide team of producers responsible for the Global Leadership Summit in 116 cities in 51 countries.

As a staff member of Willow for over 26 years, Larry has a broad level of experience as a vocalist, musician, producer, programmer, trainer and mentor. His primary passion is to raise the level of arts and worship in the local church around the world. He also is a freelance consultant serving others in the areas of media development, worship and programming.

Larry resides in Barrington, IL, is married to Beth and has 3 children.

Tom Vitacco
Tom Vitacco has been involved in music ministry at Willow Creek Church for almost 32 years and as a full-time music director for more than 20 years. He also plays professionally with several bands in the Chicago area and does recording sessions in both the Midwest and Canada. He received his education in music at Triton College and Roosevelt University in Chicago.

Jason Sirvatka
Jason leads worship at Glen Ellyn Bible Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He joined the staff of this 600-member church in 2002 after having been an Associate Music Director at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington for 8 years. In addition to planning and leading worship most Sundays, Jason serves as an arranger and producer for worship albums. These days, he is especially energized by the pursuit of discovering fresh ways to express worship corporately. Jason, his wife Kim and his 3 kids also enjoy these non-music forms of worship such as family game night and vacationing at the beach in Florida.

Jill Werst
Jill Werst is the Technical Director for Elevate, the jr. high ministry of Willow Creek Community Church. She oversees the volunteer team that handles production support for the jr. high weekend services which includes audio for live worship bands, lighting, and IMAG video. During her tenure at Willow Creek, Jill has also worked as the Technical Director for Axis (young adult) and Impact (high school) ministries. Before coming on staff in 2004, she served as a production volunteer in Axis for four years. Jill has a double major in Music Therapy and Music Education and has utilized her degree in her previous job as music therapist in a K-8 public school district; working in special education classrooms with students with a broad range of mental, physical, and emotional disabilities.

Josh Thomas
Josh came on board in 2004 to serve on Orchard Hill's video and technical production team. Josh shoots, edits and produces video projects, supports the graphic needs of the worship services and has additionally assumed responsibility as the computer master for the staff. He also has an MA in Higher Education from Geneva College. Josh and his wife, Christine, have one daughter and live in Wexford, PA.

Derek Leonidoff
A native of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Derek Leonidoff recently returned home from Los Angeles, California, where he was working as an actor and writer. Recent credits include the father, "Bob Belmont" on The Knock Knock Show for CBN films (which can currently be seen on TBN,) and the starring role of "Ron Fervent" in the hit independent film, Moving. Derek is also a veteran of dozens of national and regional commercials, and he has performed in over one-hundred industrial films. His extensive theatrical credits include "Albert Peterson" in Bye Bye Birdie, Christmas Carol and Nicholas Nickerby (national tour,) and last summer he was seen portraying multiple characters in the in the one-man show, The Wreck of the Dictator.

A life long student of improvisation, Derek is a graduate of The Groundlings Improv Comedy School, The Improv Olympic West Training Center, and the famed Second City Conservatory (L.A.) Along with his extensive improv direction and teaching credits, Derek has performed with over a dozen professional improvisational Comedy troupes including "Cup of Tea," (Improv Olympic cage match winner - 27 weeks running,) “Cog” (featured troupe – L.A. Improv Festival,) as well as the founder of, "Slaphappy! Improvisational Comedy Troupe," "The Dumbwaiters," and Regent University’s VIP’s, "Varsity Improv Players."

Currently on staff as a Guest Artist teaching improvisation at Regent University, Derek also serves as a Drama Director and writer for Spring Branch Community Church, both in his home town, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Francis Wyatt
Francis Wyatt has more than 20 years experience in leading ensembles, inside and outside church walls. Educated as a jazz drummer and composer, he has had the honor of playing with jazz greats like Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Arturo Sandoval and many others. Before coming to Willow Creek Chicago in June 2006, Francis was the Worship Leader and Music Director at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio.

He has been married to Cheryl since 1990 and they live in Evergreen Park, Illinois, with their two children, April and Brandon. Francis also leads the music program at Chicago Hope Academy, a private Christian High School in Chicago. Francis has a passion for sharing music excellence through education and mentorship. His commitment to "diversity through the arts" is a great fit for the inner-city ministry of downtown Chicago.

Jeff Petersen
Jeff Petersen founded the media department at Granger Community Church. On staff for 5 years (a volunteer for 10 years before that) Jeff has been attending Granger for almost 20 years. Since being at Granger Jeff helped lead the transformation of media productions from multi projector slide shows to the 5 screen HD digital projection that is currently used within the services. He is also a member of the programming team that plans and implements as many interesting ideas as they can think of, to communicate the timeless message of Jesus to our modern ever-changing culture. Jeff is a graduate of Indiana University in elementary education and also has a Masters degree in the same field of study. He was an elementary school teacher for 16 years prior to his employment at Granger. He and his wife Leslie have a daughter Samantha who also participates regularly on a variety of arts teams.

Susan Fontaine Godwin
Susan Fontaine Godwin is an educator and long-time member of the worship community with 24 years experience in the Christian music industry, church copyright administration and copyright management. Her mission is to help churches and Christian organizations be fully copyright compliant through administration, education and consultation. She is President and Chief Vision Officer of Righteous Oaks Music, Inc. and Christian Copyright Solutions (www.copyrightsolver.com), exclusive home of CopyrightSolver™ - " ... like online banking for copyright clearances."