Third's Leadership

Rev. Drew Phillips Senior Pastor

Rev. Phillips came to Third in the summer in the summer of 2019. He claims St. Louis as home though he cannot say he went to high school here (Chillicothe, MO c/o 1998). Drew is a graduate of Missouri Western State University, St. Joseph, MO and Campbell University Divinity School, Buies Creek, NC. He previously served as Associate Minister to Chowan University, Murfreesboro, NC and Chaplain at the Christian Activity Center (CAC), East St. Louis, IL.

My Story

Local churches have raised me and been my home my entire journey so far. I grew up in a pastor’s home in northwest Missouri and began to discern what I felt was a ministerial calling while in college. For several years I was a summer missionary at the CAC, East St. Louis and that morphed into my being called as the Chaplain there upon completing my degree from Campbell Divinity School. From the CAC I served as the Associate Minister to Chowan University, for five and half years.

I have enjoyed leading and being a part of dozens of mission trips, local and international, with youth and college students. I believe practicing the Christian disciplines in community is an exciting challenge and essential component in students’ lives. My hope for the church is that we learn our faith by doing and help become answers to our world’s great needs, recognizers of the worlds great beauty, and participants in reconciliation. I am thankful Third provides a loving and beautifully diverse community to play and pray together as we shape ourselves to serve.

My spouse, Dani and I are thrilled to parent Julius who we have welcomed while at Third. We are love and our involved in our south city neighborhood and love keeping up with the Cardinals in person or on radio, jazz shows, and sampling the many food and park options the city provides. My perfect day is spent with Dani and Julius going to an independent bookstore and eating some local food.

Movies and TV I Like

I like Wes Anderson’s movies, Ken Burns’ documentaries, and generally whatever PBS is showing. The West Wing, Northern Exposure, Scrubs, The Boondocks, Shrinking, and Ted Lasso are my favorite shows.

Music I Like

90’s music will always be my favorite collective decade of tunes regardless of the genre, but 90% of the time these days I’m listening to jazz.

Right this minute I’m enjoying:

• Joey Alexander

• Samara Joy,

• Joshua Redman,

• Zao

• Chance the Rapper

• Pedro the Lion

• Prince

Books I Like

Do I read for work or pleasure? “YES!”

I love to read fiction, poetry, preaching, Civil Rights history, local history, memoirs, theology, (and aim to read from lived experiences different than my own).

These three relatively recent reads have stuck with me: Heather McGhee-The Sum of Us, Walter Johnson-The Broken Heart of America, and James McBride-The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Will Campbell’s Brother to a Dragonfly has been my favorite book for 20 years.

These are authors who inspire me:

• Elizabeth Alexander
• James Baldwin
• Wendell Berry
• Amena Brown
• Ta’Nehisi Coates
• Ellen Davis
• Ross Gay
• Adam Gopnik
• Yaa Gyassi
• Greg Jarrell
• Willie Jennings
• Rebecca Makai
• James Martin
• Terry Minchow-Proffitt
• Marylinne Robinson
• Tracy K. Smith
• Colm Toibin
• Alice Walker
• Christian Wiman

Tom Kurtz Business Manager

I'm a St Louis native who joined Dow Chemical after college, in sales, office management, marketing and IT at the Michigan headquarters and in several cities. After moving back to St. Louis, I opened a branch office for Edward Jones as a financial consultant. I like wood working and home remodeling, and love sailing. I have two children and married my high school sweetheart 24 years ago. Groups interested in renting the church’s facilities should contact me.

Philip Barnes Director of Music

Recognized by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as ‘Best Choral Conductor’, Philip has established an enviable reputation for choir training and programming through his work with the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus. He has conducted this professional ensemble since 1989, and has earned numerous plaudits locally, nationally and internationally for his direction. He is also known for his championing of women composers, and for the numerous premieres he has conducted. His work may be heard on fourteen compact discs, most recently on the Regent (UK) label. His commentary may be heard on Re-Choired Listening, a selection of great choral and vocal music, broadcast weekly on Classic 107.3 FM (and online). As a singer he appeared on many commercial recordings in both the USA and England, where he spent his formative years as a boy chorister and later adult member of various cathedral and chapel choirs.

He has sung, conducted, and lectured on a wide range of subjects in Europe and North America; for example, in January 2019 he flew to Moscow to address the Orthodox Patriarch’s “Christmas Readings” conference. Many of these presentations have examined the intersection of music and classical literature, which reflects his training not only as a musician but also as a classicist; the latter he employs as a member of the Latin & Greek Department at John Burroughs School, where he was the first holder of the Johnston Endowed Chair in Classics. For many summers he has also taught at the Chautauqua Institution (NY).

Philip holds degrees and postgraduate certificates from the universities of Bristol and Manchester (UK), and King’s College, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and in May 2019 was awarded an honorary doctorate of ‘humane letters’ by The Aquinas Institute, at St. Louis University. For the spring of 2022 he has been awarded a Bogliasco Fellowship to study in Genoa, Italy.

He is married to a lifelong member of Third Baptist, Rachael, with whom he has two children, Eliot & Sylvia.

Lansin Lim Kimler Pianist

Kevin Chunko Organist and Media Director

Kevin began at Third Baptist as Organist and Media Director in August 2026. He holds a Bachelor of Music in organ performance from Millikin University (Decatur, IL) and a Master of Music in Organ Performance from Western Illinois University (Macomb, IL); during his Master’s period, he was inducted into the honors fraternity Phi Kappa Phi. Later, Kevin pursued a lengthy period of doctoral studies at the University of Illlinois in Urbana-Champaign, studying organ performance and historical performance practice under a full fellowship. He studied organ with Dana Robinson and early performance practice with harpsichordist Charlotte Mattax-Moersch.

Kevin was an adjunct faculty accompanist and university organist at Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL), accompanying a full vocal studio. Here he also accompanied all choirs under the direction of choral conductor J. Scott Ferguson. Kevin served as organist for major university functions. Highlights during this period include performances of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs (choir and organ), Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice In The Lamb, James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados, and a world premiere of Judith Shatin’s La Frontera. As a church musician, he has served as organist for churches of Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church of Christ communities. Within church ministry, he has participated on staffs in major collaborative efforts, helping to craft cohesive worship experiences.

Brent Johnson Organist Laureate

Brent Johnson came to Third Baptist Church in 2004 while working as a technician for the Wicks Organ Company of Highland, Illinois. He started there in 1998 after studying organ with Robert T. Anderson at the Meadows School of the Arts and Kenneth G. Hart at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. While at SMU he also performed with the Meadows Percussion Ensemble and was a member and Drum Major of the Mustang Band. His work with Wicks took him across the country tuning, repairing, and installing pipe organs. He is currently responsible for the care of the 72-rank Kilgen/Moller pipe organ at Third Baptist, and does freelance organ work around St. Louis. As an arranger and music director he has worked in many different fields of classical, church, and pop music, but has always returned to the organ.

In addition to his work at Third, Brent is a founding member of the non-profit Organ Media Foundation. There he oversees web development and production of the Internet audio stations Organlive and Positively Baroque, and The Organ Experience, and produces video content exploring pipe organs all over the country. In 2017, he was awarded the Avis Blewett Award by the St. Louis Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, presented to “those who have made a significant contribution to the musical life of the Saint Louis area.”

Brent and his wife Carrie Bradfield are completing the restoration of a historic house in the Carondelet neighborhood of St. Louis.