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What happened to Multnomah Bible College, its Portland campus, and the legacy built by generations of students, faculty, donors, and churches?

In this episode of Jesus in the Upper Left, Oshawa Hawthorne sits down with longtime Multnomah professor Dr. Gary Friesen to discuss the school’s closure, its transition to Jessup University, the debt attached to the campus, and the moral questions now being raised by the Multnomah Legacy Project.

Dr. Friesen shares why his team believes Multnomah’s community did not receive what it was promised, how private conversations with Jessup developed into an open letter and public campaign, and why the group made a $12 million reconciliation offer despite having no money or formal authority.

They also discuss:

• Why Dr. Friesen believes Multnomah lost sight of its original mission  
• The reported loans secured against the Portland campus  
• The leadership changes that followed the controversy  The possibility of a new Bible college emerging from Multnomah’s legacy  
• How alumni, churches, and supporters can respond  
• Dr. Friesen’s work training pastors and building Africa’s largest theological library in Rwanda  
• Why he believes pursuing justice matters even when success appears impossible  

This conversation reflects Dr. Friesen’s perspective and his account of an ongoing situation. Listeners are encouraged to review the available documents and reach their own conclusions.

Learn more about the Multnomah Legacy Project by searching “Multnomah Legacy Project.”

For more episodes, resources, and opportunities to connect with gospel-centered leaders across the Pacific Northwest, visit UpperLeftShow.com.

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Tim Osborne started asking one question in every lead pastor interview: "Who's mentored you?" The answers shocked him enough to keep asking, and keep being disappointed.

That question sits at the center of this conversation with Naomi Federiuk, Director of Discipleship Training for Expand Network. Naomi's team has identified a specific gap in local churches: the gathering works, small groups work, but one-on-one life-on-life discipleship barely exists as a culture. Most Christians agree they should be making disciples but feel completely unqualified to start, largely because no one ever did it for them.

The conversation covers what Expand is seeing work in Uganda (where 500 inmates have come to faith across 11 prisons in four months and they're now solving for discipleship at scale inside prison walls), why busyness signals unavailability to the very people looking for mentors, and how Discovery Bible Study gives everyday Christians a reproducible tool simple enough to use next week. Naomi breaks down the DBS format step by step: retelling, application, the uncomfortable "I will" statement, and the built-in multiplication question of "who will you share this with?"

This one's for pastors who suspect they're unintentionally blocking the thing they preach, for empty nesters who don't think they're qualified, and for anyone who's wanted to disciple someone but didn't know the first practical step.

Naomi Federiuk, Director of Discipleship Training, Expand Network
Tim Osborne, Dean of Portland Seminary
Gabe Kolstad, Lead Pastor, Westside Community Church

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What would it look like to actually reach every man, woman, and child in your city with the gospel? Not as a slogan — as a strategy.

Nick Harding has spent 30 years trying to find out. As the leader of KX City Reaching in Liverpool, UK, he's been building unity, breaking down barriers, handing off leadership, and watching God move in ways that are starting to look a lot like what Portland might be on the edge of.

Tim and Gabe sat down with Nick during his visit to Portland to hear what the UK has learned — and what the Pacific Northwest can take from it.

In This Episode You'll Discover

• What "gospel saturation" actually means — and what it looks like to pursue it across an entire city region
• How Nick built 30 years of trust among Liverpool's pastors — and why vulnerability was the turning point
• The "one church in Liverpool" mantra that changed everything
• Why Nick spent five years intentionally reaching out to Nigerian-led churches — and what it cost to get there
• What it looks like to hand off leadership well and why timing matters more than most leaders realize
• How micro churches and Alpha are fueling a wave of curiosity and conversion in the UK right now
• Why Nick believes the UK has moved from post-Christian to pre-Christian — and what that means for Portland
• What Bible sales in the UK going up 134% in one year tells us about where the West is headed
• How KX City Reaching is partnering with cities across the UK — and how Portland leaders can get involved

If this conversation encouraged you, subscribe for more honest conversations about church planting, leadership, and following Jesus in the Pacific Northwest.

Resources

🌍 KX City Reaching — https://www.kairosconnection.org/city-reaching

📧 Nick Harding — [email protected]

🤝 Multiply PDX — https://www.togetherpdx.org/multiplypdx

#CityReaching #GospelSaturation #ChurchPlanting #PacificNorthwest #Portland #Liverpool #NickHarding #JesusInTheUpperLeft #UpperLeftPodcast #MicroChurch #AlphaCourse #ChurchUnity

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What does it look like to actually live the mission you preach — not just talk about it from a stage?

In part two of our conversation with Matt Bowen, lead pastor of Emmaus Church in Beaverton, we get into the real work of building something healthy from the ground up — the elder formation process, the search for a building, and the moment Matt realized he didn't have a single consistent friendship with someone outside the faith on his calendar. Not aspirationally. Actually.

What he did about it became one of the most honest and compelling parts of his story.

In This Episode You'll Discover

• How Matt built an intentional elder formation cohort — and why only 1 of 9 made it through the first round
• What books and practices shaped Emmaus's elder culture from the beginning
• Why Matt worked hard to de-center himself as the go-to voice for everything at the church
• How Emmaus ended up in their current building — and the prayer God answered on day two of painting
• What it actually looks like to be incarnationally present in a neighborhood as a pastor
• Why Matt started pouring beer at Wildwood Taphouse two days a week — and what it's done for his preaching
• How the Emmaus Road story continues to shape everything the church does
• What healthy church building really looks like when no one's watching

If this conversation encouraged you, subscribe for more honest conversations about church planting, leadership, and following Jesus in the Pacific Northwest.

Resources

🏠 Emmaus Church — https://www.emmauspdx.org/

🤝 Multiply PDX — https://www.togetherpdx.org/multiplypdx

#ChurchPlanting #PacificNorthwest #Portland #EmmausChurch #Beaverton #GospelMultiplication #ChurchLeadership #JesusInTheUpperLeft #UpperLeftPodcast #BarPastor

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Matt Bowen didn't set out to plant a church. He didn't think he had the gifts for it. He wasn't the big personality. He just felt God say it was time to go — and said yes.
What followed was one of the more remarkable stories you'll hear from a pastor in the Pacific Northwest.

In This Episode You'll Discover:
- Why Matt resisted church planting for years — and what finally changed
- How fear and comfort can quietly become the biggest barriers to obedience
- What it looks like to plant within a multi-congregational network model
- How the Colossae network was built, multiplied, and ultimately collapsed
- What Matt learned about shepherding people through organizational crisis and leadership failure
- Why he nearly quit ministry in early 2021 — and what kept him in
- How Emmaus Church was born out of the ashes of one of the hardest seasons of his life
- What the Emmaus road story has to do with planting a church in Beaverton

If this conversation encouraged you, subscribe for more honest conversations about church planting, leadership, and following Jesus in the Pacific Northwest.

Resources
🏠 Emmaus Church — https://www.emmauspdx.org/
🤝 Multiply PDX — https://www.togetherpdx.org/multiplypdx

#ChurchPlanting #PacificNorthwest #Portland #Emmaus #GospelMultiplication #ChurchLeadership #JesusInTheUpperLeft #UpperLeftPodcast

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What actually causes pastors and churches to fall apart? After 20 years of denominational leadership and more interventions than she wants to count, Tammy Dunahue has a clear answer — and it's probably not what you'd expect.

In this conversation, Tim and Gabe sit down with Tammy Dunahue, Executive Dean of Portland Seminary at George Fox University and a 40-year veteran of church planting, revitalization, and movement leadership. Tammy and her husband Gary co-planted and multiplied churches across California and Arkansas, helped shape Foursquare's national church planting infrastructure, and now invest in forming the next generation of kingdom leaders.

The conversation covers a lot of ground: what it actually looks like to plant with a multiplication mindset from day one, how complementary gifting and team building fuel church health, what it means to contextualize the gospel in a new region, and why the Pacific Northwest's biggest barrier to gospel movement might be the church's own thinking.

Tammy also shares a compelling vision for Portland — a candle in every neighborhood — and why she believes wherever there's enough darkness, a birthday candle will do.

If you lead a church, plant churches, or care about what God is doing in the Pacific Northwest, this one is worth your full attention. 

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What does it look like to follow a founder — especially one who built something that shaped an entire city?

Chris Nye  is the lead pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland, Oregon. In this conversation, he shares the unlikely story of how a kid born less than a mile from the church he now leads came to faith in the suburbs, felt the pull of the city for decades, and eventually received a casual text from Rick McKinley that changed everything.

Tim Osborn and Ahshuwah Hawthorne  dig into what a healthy pastoral transition actually looks like from the inside — the trust required, the staff challenges, the financial pressure, and why Chris believes 90% of the success comes down to what the predecessor does. They also talk about something surprising: a noticeable shift in Portland's spiritual climate, with people showing up to church half-converted, surrendering tarot cards, and waking up at 2am sensing they need to find a church.

The conversation closes with a powerful reflection on what Imago Dei has meant to Portland — and what Chris believes the church must hold onto going forward: that the gospel is not something the church owns and distributes, but something declared upon the church first.

If you lead a church, plant a church, or care about the future of the gospel in the Pacific Northwest, this one is worth your full attention.

Find Imago Dei Community online at IDCPDX.com

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Pastor Clifford Jones shares an unforgettable testimony of meeting Jesus while serving a 50-year sentence in Louisiana State Penitentiary, one of the most violent prisons in America. What followed was a radical transformation, seminary training behind bars, pastoral ministry in prison, and eventually a calling that brought him all the way to the Pacific Northwest.

In this episode of Jesus in the Upper Left, Clifford tells the story of how God changed his life, opened prison doors he never expected to walk out of, and led him to Oregon to serve men and women impacted by incarceration, homelessness, and brokenness through Light My Way Ministry.

We talk about redemption, mentoring men, real discipleship, prison ministry, reentry, and what it means to be the church for people that many others overlook.

If this episode encouraged you, subscribe, share it with someone, and help more people hear what God is doing in the Pacific Northwest.

Discover:

• Prison testimony and radical conversion
• How Clifford met Jesus in Louisiana State Penitentiary
• From a 50-year sentence to pastoral ministry
• Why prison ministry and reentry work matter so much
• How Light My Way serves people before, during, and after incarceration
• What it looks like to disciple men with truth, respect, and relationship

Subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and visit https://www.upperleftshow.com for bonus content, resources, and ways to connect.

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Cameron Heger moved from Arkansas to Portland with no ministry plan — just a seminary enrollment and a love for the city. After years embedded at Door of Hope, he felt called to plant a new church. Door of Hope sent him with a core team of 100 adults, a building, and a spirit of generosity. Door of Hope Northeast held its first gathering on March 1, 2020. Its second on March 8. There was no third — the world shut down.

In this conversation, Cameron shares what it was like to lead a brand-new church through a global crisis, the season of painful fallout that followed, and the moment his wife told him nobody actually knew him anymore. He talks honestly about pastoral isolation, the temptation to perform strength while falling apart inside, and what it looked like to finally open up.

He also shares practical wisdom for anyone considering church planting in Portland — why embedding in the city matters more than launching fast, what it means to experience church as a family and not just a project, and why the cost of multiplication is always worth it.

Themes covered: church planting through multiplication, launching into crisis, pastoral vulnerability and isolation, the Door of Hope family-of-churches model, embedding before planting, small church identity, and the cost of sending.

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Welcome to Jesus in the Upper Left, where we're talking about gospel multiplication in the Pacific Northwest. We've been praying for a spiritual climate change in Portland, Oregon for decades, and we're excited to see it happening. This episode offers a new perspective on engaging in gospel conversation within our communities. 🙏

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New research on Portland reveals something most church leaders wouldn't guess — the city is far more spiritually open than its reputation suggests. Missiologist Ed Stetzer joins Tim Osborne and Gabe Colstatt to unpack major findings from a mixed-method study of the Portland-Vancouver metro area conducted in partnership with Come Near and 7 Cents. The data shows striking curiosity about meaning, the supernatural, and even Jesus himself — alongside deep distrust of institutions and an uncertain civic mood after 2020.

For those interested in pursuing the Portland Talbot cohort visit this site: https://go.biola.edu/register/?id=1dbf4894-ba85-4c21-8f09-f9ed47c1cd5e&_gl=1*oof8le*_gcl_au*MjAzMTM3MzkxNC4xNzY3NjMxNjIxLjEzMjc3NjIzNjIuMTc3MDc1NDg0Ni4xNzcwNzU0ODg5*_ga*MTc4Njg5ODA0MC4xNzExNTU1ODIz*_ga_YFBWBXLQJ7*czE3NzM4NDU4NzQkbzc2NyRnMSR0MTc3Mzg0NjA3NyRqNjAkbDAkaDA

Ed breaks down what he calls a "chastened city," why neighborhoods and proximity matter more than ever for gospel work here, and why church planters need sober expectations — not conference hype — to stay faithful for the long haul. The conversation also covers Talbot School of Theology's upcoming Portland extension site launching in fall, with 50% scholarships for the inaugural cohort.

Whether you're a pastor, church planter, or someone trying to understand what God is doing in the Pacific Northwest, this episode will reframe how you see Portland.

The full 200+ page Portland research report is available here: https://willamette.cc/un-fractured

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