Rev. Peter Laarman, Executive Director, is a graduate of Brown University and Yale Divinity School with a background in community organizing and in media work for the U.S. labor movement. Before joining the PCU staff in 2004, Laarman served for ten years as senior minister of New York City's historic Judson Memorial Church, during which time he focused the church's public ministry on support for low-wage workers and popular education addressing rising social and economic inequality in New York and the nation. At PCU Peter has worked on developing more vital local networking opportunities for progressive Christians, nurturing young leader development via PCU's campus program, upgrading PCU's communications and web capacity, building a stronger board of directors, and paring program emphases down so as to sharpen PCU's identity and effectiveness. An ordained UCC minister, Peter also writes and blogs extensively. In 2006 Beacon Press published a book of essays Peter gathered and edited under the title Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel.
