Orange County Chapter

We Have Our Own Team!!!

2008 OC AIDS Walk is right around the corner.

This year’s walk will be held on: Saturday May 10th at 9:00 a.m. at Angel Stadium.

Join our team now so you can start fundraising now. The cause needs us!
Our team name is: Progressive Christians Uniting (what a surprise!) Make sure you enter just that in order to find our team.
Erin Weller: Orange County Organizer, 2008!

Hi! I’m Erin Weller, PCU’s new Orange County Chapter Coordinator. I wanted to take this time to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about me. I grew up in Tustin, CA, becoming very active in the United Church of Christ Youth Roundtable while I was in high school, and in turn, participating in many events of the Southern California/Nevada Conference of the UCC. I had hoped to go to college on the east coast, and when that didn’t work out for me I was crushed. I decided to go to Chapman University instead and went through my freshman year heartbroken. It’s funny, though, how God seems to place you right where you need to be, and I found myself loving Chapman. I majored in Peace Studies and in Dance Performance. I was able to get involved with many programs on campus, from Disciples on Campus (DOC) and Students for Peaceful Empowerment, Action, and Knowledge (SPEAK) to Chapman Dance Alliance (CDA). I studied with such esteemed scholars as Dr. Don Will, Dr. Angeliki Kanavou, Dr. Nubar Hovsepian, and Dr. Lynn Horton, as well as dance faculty highly acclaimed in their field: Professor Dale Merrill, Professor Nancy Dickson-Lewis, Professor Cyrus Parker-Jeannette, Professor Liz Maxwell, and Professor Robin Kish. I just finished school at the end of January 2008 and will walk in Chapman’s commencement in May 2008.

Life has been very busy since I’ve graduated, a blessing since I’ve heard so many fellow students harp over hitting their “what am I going to do now!” low right out of school. Fortunately for me I found PCU and life has been wonderful ever since. But, I only work for PCU part-time and so, understandably, I work in other places as well. I work for Saint Joseph Ballet, a non-profit organization that reaches out to low-income youth in Santa Ana, teaching them dance (ballet and modern), tutoring them, and helping their parents find work. In addition, I volunteer tutor at-risk children from Santa Ana for Project Impact. Currently, I am trying to become a Big Sister through Big Brothers Big Sisters of Orange County so that I can mentor a young girl who needs a positive person in her life. Volunteering at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) is also on my horizon and I hope to start doing that once a week starting soon. At this point most people say to me, “That’s great, Erin, but what else are you going to do to make some money!?” My response is usually a laugh, but also I am working towards dancing for a modern dance company in Orange County that wouldn’t make me all that much more money, but it would provide a little, and it is my dream, so you can pray that it works out for me!

You may be curious as to what is it that I do for PCU. Well, the answer is…I organize all of you! or at least those of you who live in Orange County! Orange County may be a highly conservative place filled with mega churches and ultra capitalist corporations, but there are hidden progressives here and there and my job is to find them and to help cultivate more of them! In Orange County we have a PCU Steering Committee of about 15 to 20 active members who meet monthly and organize events in the community as well as forums for dialogue and discussion. It is a pretty impressive bunch and I’m thrilled to work with them. But, I not only work with them, I work with everyone and anyone in Orange County who is interested in PCU and what we do.

Our next event will tentatively be on Sunday, June 8th at around 4 or 5 in the afternoon/evening. We will be hosting Sister Suzanne Jarbo, integral in the Get on the Bus program uniting children with their mothers and fathers in prison. She will be discussing this outstanding program as well as the important and sometimes forgotten issue of women in the criminal justice system. More specific information to come.

The OC Chapter will also be starting something similar to a Conscientious Projector in our area beginning in June and continuing monthly where we view and discuss films relevant to our lives and to world issues today. The films will be shown the 4th Friday of every month and the location will change from one PCU church in Orange County to another in order to celebrate our progressive churches and congregate with them. June will be at Church of the Foothills, July will be at Fairview Community Church, and August will be at Tustin Presbyterian Church. More information to come on the films that will be shown and the times that we will show them.

So, that’s it for me right now. My home church is Church of the Foothills in North Tustin where Rev. Dr. Mike Holland is the pastor, so you can catch me there about once or twice a month depending on how busy I am visiting other OC churches to talk about PCU. If you are at all interested in PCU-OC, PCU’s oldest chapter (a little over 2 years old now), feel free to contact me, Erin Weller, at or on my phone at 714-721-6554. I send out a weekly e-newsletter every Wednesday morning and I would love to send it to you, too! Just let me know. We welcome all levels of participation in our chapter from simply attending our events to tabling for us, helping to plan events, and/or being a part of our OC Steering Committee. (Note: you don’t have to be clergy to be a part of our Steering Committee!!!) Hope to hear from you.

Many blessings,

Erin