Hugh Osgood
Personal background and early ministry
Having turned sixty in 2007, Hugh has been in a combination of Christian ministry and secular work since his early twenties. Born into a prominent Salvation Army family, he sorted out his relationship with God in his teens whilst worshipping at an evangelical Anglican church.
In the 1970s and 80s, after a time working in teaching hospital oral surgery units in London, he combined part-time work as a general dental practitioner (and business associate), with starting and leading a local Charismatic church as part of the New Churches Movement.
He has always had a huge capacity for life and work. He played a significant part in the inter-church liaison, counselling and follow-up of converts for the Luis Palau Mission to London in 1983-4.
He was seconded to the Billy Graham organisation to head-up similar departments for Mission ’89. During this time he also continued his Student Ministry of campus missions and evangelistic events, which he had started on graduating, alongside his dental and church-planting work.
Cornerstone Christian Centre
In the early 1990s, after a fruitful year as an Assemblies of God pastor, Hugh set up Cornerstone Christian Centre, where he is still Senior Minister. This ‘resource centre church’ pioneered a TV department (later CPS Ltd), the staff of which established GOD TV and Revelation TV.
Hugh continues to provide programming for both the UK and overseas. Hugh’s leadership of Cornerstone has also overseen the birth of a number of social action projects, including the Welcome Centre for Refugees, and a pre-school in north Bromley.
Overseas and inter-church ministry
Since the 1980s Hugh has taught extensively in Pakistan, Uganda, Nigeria, the Caribbean, Malaysia and the Far East, holding campaigns, encouraging church leaders and promoting a variety of media, aid and social action projects.
His dental career having come to a natural close in 1990 with the increase of ministry, Hugh’s inter-church work helped steer many of the London-wide prayer initiatives that grew strong during the 1990s.
From 1992 Hugh was asked to serve on the executive committee of Morris Cerullo’s Mission to London to enhance inter-church liaison, especially between traditional evangelical churches and the African and Caribbean diaspora churches in London. He continued to do this throughout the 1990s.
CiC International and other responsibilities
In 1993 after hosting a number of large conferences involving international speakers, Hugh was approached to establish a Ministers’ Fellowship by many of the newly arrived African leaders church-planting in the capital.
Since 1997 Hugh has been the President and Chair of Council of Churches in Communities International (a network of independent churches and ministries, which he founded and which now operates in a number of different nations).
He has been a trustee of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance since 1997 and in 2007 was appointed co-chairman of the UK’s Charismatic and Pentecostal Leaders’ Conference.
From 1997-1999 he co-ordinated the Evangelical Alliance’s work in London and remains on the core steering group of Hope for London. He serves on the Free Churches Group of Churches Together in England, also representing them on the Churches Media Council.
Hugh recently co-ordinated the consultations between the independent church sector and the Charity Commission, helping to write the model documentation now in place for independent churches.
Personal Summary
Hugh is married to Marion. They have three children and ten grandchildren. He is known as a pastor to pastors, an expository preacher of the Bible and is regarded as an ‘apostle’ to various nations. Hugh is never knowingly idle.
Academic footnote
Hugh holds a PhD from London University in Inter-Church Relations, a Master’s in Divinity from Lahore, Pakistan, and a Bachelor’s degree in Dentistry (BDS) from the Royal Dental Hospital of London.
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