Portland Pastor Helping Launch New Cohort for Ministry Leaders
Oct. 3, 2024
Portland-area pastor Tim Osborn is noticing a trend: More and more churches no longer look to the seminary to provide leaders. But over two decades in ministry have convinced him that churches and leaders won’t last long-term in ministry without seminary training.
“You have new churches that pop up and thrive and their leaders may think, ‘I don’t need seminary,’” he admits. “But in three years or so they are going to realize all the stuff they don’t know about Galatians, or why Ezra is even in the Bible. They are going to start getting questions they don’t have answers to.”
That’s why Osborn is excited to be leading a cohort for church leaders at Western Seminary in the spring of 2025. Structured around once-a-month intensives, the cohort takes advantage of a condensed classroom format while allowing the same group of students to complete the MA in Ministry and Leadership degree together. It’s a structure that he believes will be fruitful, especially for those leaders who are already serving in ministry.
As the cohort curator, Osborn will provide ministry mentorship to students while they take Bible and theology classes from Western faculty. He will help students apply insights and discussions from class to their own ministry contexts.
“If you want to stay in ministry 40 or 50 years, you need seminary,” he says. “While the church no longer looks to the seminary to provide its leaders the way it used to, the seminary offers something the church doesn’t have: Experienced trained faculty.”
Seminary training played a large role in preparing Osborn for his ministry as a pastor in Portland. He earned an MDiv from Talbot Seminary and served in college and young adult ministry for several years. In 2007, he and his family moved to Portland from Southern California to pastor Mosaic Church, a newly planted church with the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
When Osborn arrived, the church had already developed a vision to plant more churches in the region. Less than a year and a half into his role, Mosaic sent out its first church plant. They would go on to plant four more churches in the Portland area within the next five years.
“I was grateful to come into a church that already had a vision for Portland in place,” he acknowledges. “It simply wasn’t about me.”
Osborn acknowledges that while the ministry was fruitful, it was not always easy to continue sending out large groups of people from his church.
“We had to constantly cast the vision, because at some point, people begin looking around the room and see that four rows are empty this week because we planted another church.”
But he firmly believes the sacrifice was worth it, especially if a church truly views their city as a mission field.
“I would much rather go through the relational pain of not seeing you every Sunday but know that you are reaching somebody in another part of the city.”
Osborn and his family transitioned away from Mosaic in 2024 after leading the church for 17 years. He is currently serving as Interim Pastor at Missio Church, and he is grateful to continue developing ministry leaders in his role with Western.
Learn more about the MA in Ministry and Leadership cohort launching next spring in Portland.