Pastor Sam Roberson

Hi my name is Sam and let’s get the unimportant stuff out of the way.

I graduated with a BA in Asian American Studies from UC Santa Barbara in 2004, started my career in ministry as a youth pastor in 2011, and I have spent my time the last 12 years as a children’s pastor, education pastor, and outreach pastor. I graduated and earned my Seminary degree from Talbot School of Theology in 2018 and I was ordained in 2020.

But those aren’t the credentials that matter to me.

Here’s what matters:

I am an adoptee with anxiety that stems from childhood trauma of abandonment and rejection.

As a result of early childhood trauma, I’ve dealt with different addictions to varying degrees my whole life in order to self-soothe and numb.

I have been to jail in the past, and I go to therapy in the present.

Why does this matter more to me? Because these were all things that I held a deep shame for all my life. I thought there was something wrong with me, and that I could never be heard, known, loved, or accepted.

But through the acceptance I received coming back to the community of God’s church at 27 and the safety I gained through group therapy, I’ve realized how important is that I have gotten these things, how much others need them, and how much Jesus values that same acceptance and safety in his kingdom.

It’s helped me to become a more genuine and authentic person, one who can boast in his weakness and in Christ’s redemption, and someone who leans into intimacy and integrity.

My prayer and hope is for us at Perch to show the people we encounter the love, the acceptance, the safety, the peace, and the intimacy that Jesus invites all of us to share in. We are praying for people who share a similar heart for broken people to join us.

Feel free to reach out to me at sam@perch.church

Charlene Roberson

Where to start? My life has been a series of contradictions, changes of direction, doubt, faith, guilt, freedom…

I love God, but for the longest time I also hated Him for all the pain that life offered me. Is that okay to say out loud? Yes, I believe it is. It’s not like He doesn’t know it anyway. Thankfully (SO thankfully) He has never held it against me.

I am a multiple trauma survivor - my therapist’s words, not mine. I’ve experienced it all: wealth, poverty, joy, devastation, success, failure, fitness, disability, community…isolation. What all that means is that I grew up having no idea who I was or what I was doing. I lived passionately, but was scattered in every direction.

I’ve praised God with my hands held high and my voice shouting out. I’ve pushed Him away in guilt and resentment as I indulged in what the Bible teaches as NOT good or moral behavior. A few years after I became a Christian, I was questioning whether someone like me was even meant to be a child of God - maybe I had made a mistake, and would be better off just forgetting the whole “being a Christian” business. Or become a nun, so I could completely remove myself from temptation altogether. One or the other.

Romans chapter 7, verses 15 and 24 might as well have been my theme song during my late teens and early twenties. “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

And Romans 7:25 finally became real to me once I let the gospel really sink in. I love John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life,” but the verse directly after that one is what really, really sent me to my knees.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! The freedom, the joy, the gratitude from understanding really did transform me. Ironically, knowing I wasn’t required to live a holy, pure life to get to heaven is what helped me to live a more holy, pure life.

All that to say, I am really grateful to be here, now, at Perch. I don’t deserve to be married to a wonderful man who loves me like Christ loves the Church. I’m not the stereotypical pastor’s wife who’s able to bake and entertain and live life at a thousand miles an hour. I’ve made so many mistakes, and I’m sure I will be making many, many more in the future. But praise God who knows everything about me and loves me despite myself.

And praise God who knows everything about you and loves you too. Sam and I hope and pray that Perch becomes a place where everyone and anyone can feel known and loved, no matter who they are or where they come from. Let’s all praise Him together.

You can reach me at charlene@perch.church

Hi guys!

My name is Jay Chang and to my right you’ll see my better half, Patricia :)

We recently got married in July of 2023 and are currently living in Santa Ana, CA. Patricia and I both work in the medical field as a pharmacist and a nurse, respectively.

We’ve attended church our whole lives and have been extensively involved in various ministries like praise & worship, the church welcome team, youth student program teachers, etc. I think it’s safe to say that both Patricia and I have a common passion - to meet God’s people where they are in life, become safe people for them and intentionally walk alongside them! Of course, I love doing this over the breaking of bread as well, since good company always makes for better food.

Without a doubt, Patricia and I both have been beneficiaries of having safe godly people pour into our lives and that is what we, and Perch, strive to be.