Booknote: “Pastoral Preaching” by Conrad Mbewe
Conrad Mbewe, Pastoral Preaching: Building a People for God. Carlisle, England: Langham Partnership, 2017. $20.99.
Every year Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson hosts the John Reed Miller Preaching Lectures. Guest ministers speak to various aspects of the life and work of the minister. Both students and veteran preachers leave encouraged in the Lord.
Our 2015 lecturer was Conrad Mbewe, who for three decades has pastored Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia. I found his lectures to be among the best I have heard on preaching. The instruction was clear, direct, and winsome, offering entirely satisfying nuts-and-bolts counsel to the preacher. Judging by the feedback, students were as personally renewed in their commitment to biblical preaching as I was.
The publication of Mbewe’s Pastoral Preaching: Building a People for God escaped my notice until late last year. I was thrilled to find it contains much of the material from his RTS lectures.
The term itself – pastoral preaching – is beautiful. For those who are called to shepherd congregations, preaching must never be separated from pastoral care. Instead, it must be regarded as a distinct and critical component of it. Although this book was written with an African audience in mind, any Western preacher will benefit from reading it carefully and prayerfully.
