Conrad Mbewe: A Worthy Ministry To Support

Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Justin Peters. I hope that you and your family are doing well today. I wanna thank you so much for joining me for this podcast. As many of you know, I try to do all that I can to promote good doctrinally sound churches and doctrinally sound ministries and ministry endeavors.

And so that is the purpose of this video today. And I'm joined by Greg Thornburg. Greg is the pastor of Redemption Bible Church in Coolidge, Arizona, which is between Tucson and Phoenix. And Greg is a great guy.

I've been a guest on his program before. And I wanna introduce you to him because he's done a lot of work in Africa and he's friends with Conrad Mbewe in Africa and does work in Christian publishing for the African continent.

And there's a tremendous need there. So I wanna let you be, I wanna let you know about Greg and the work that he's doing. So Greg, brother, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you, Justin.

Yeah, well, tell us just a little bit about yourself and your church first.

Yeah, so our church is a Reformed Baptist Church. It doesn't have that in the title of the church's name, but that's where we sit doctrinally. We also are a church where families worship together. So we really are a close-knit, family-friendly church, and we focus on being doctrinally sound.

But we also have a heart for sound doctrine in the ministry of others. So we are a church that wants to support the ministry of others, other churches, publishing ministries, and so forth, because the ultimate goal of our church is the same goal as a church universal.

We want to see the word of God spread. So that's what our little church is all about. To do a quick plug, you can go to RBC, that is Redemption Bible Church, rbccasagrande .org. I know I said we're in Coolidge.

We're trying to get into Casa Grande, but we're in this small church building that another church let us come into, and it's been this wonderful relationship between our church and their church. And so we're probably gonna be in Coolidge for a few years, but we'd love to have you stop by and visit if you're watching this and you're in the Arizona area.

Yeah, okay, good deal, good deal, brother. Well, Greg, tell us a little bit about how you became interested and involved in Christian work in Africa, and what does that look like, and the need for publishing in Africa?

Yeah, well, I believe it is the great responsibility of wealthier churches and wealthier nations, Christians in wealthier nations, to care for their brothers and sisters in churches that don't have the same resources.

So a while ago, I heard through Vodibakam that he was at a conference that I had been attending at and was also a speaker at. He had mentioned the need for publishing in Africa. So I reached out directly to, I should say, publishing that Conrad Mbewe needed.

And so I reached out directly to Conrad, and I said, brother, I grew up in the publishing industry. I used to be in the graphic marketing industry, and I've also done a lot of fundraising. And so one of the things that I would like to do is I'd like to help fund what you're doing, and then also help you with the development of the books.

And he said, brother, I would love your help. You came out of the middle of nowhere, and we would be thrilled to have your help. And so the relationship has grown from there over, I would say, just a little over a year now.

It hasn't been too terribly long, but we got one book to publish that was on the topic of marriage and divorce and remarriage. So that is where things got started. He had a book in mind, and we got started from there.

Yeah, all right. Well, Conrad is a great, great guy. I've been with him in Africa before, in Zambia. Had the honor of filling his pulpit one Sunday and also teaching at the seminary there. I did my seminar, Clouds Without Water.

And I tell people that the word faith prosperity gospel is bad here, as bad as it is here in the United States. It, the problem that we have here with it in the States doesn't hold a candle.

Nothing compared to what's going on in Zambia. Yeah, in fact, the other day I was talking with Conrad, and he said, these are the words he used, is that the prosperity gospel church movement litters the streets of Africa with free literature.

So it's very hard for churches like his to compete for attention with people and to get sound doctrine out there. So it's really hard.

Right, it is. I mean, that stuff just saturates every facet of African culture. So far, I've been to South Africa, I've been to Zambia, and I've been to Uganda. And it just saturates every facet of their society.

I mean, even like I've seen like a Jehovah Jireh taxi or Blessed and Highly Favored salon, or God, you know, it's just, you hear that, you see that lingo even in, you know, just secular businesses, it's just all over the place.

And yeah, it's a tremendous need there, so.

Yeah, and so.

Go ahead.

Okay, so yeah. And one of the things that the prosperity church movement does, well, a number of things that it does, is because a lot of the people who start churches there under that umbrella think, well, I received an anointing and now I can go be a pastor.

Well, the church is founded on the word of God. The church are the people who are devoted to the teaching of the apostles that were written down in scripture. And so you've got a church that's detached from scripture that doesn't know the word of God, that isn't speaking the very words of the Holy Spirit.

So they claim to be spirit-led, but where is the Spirit's words preserved? They're preserved in scripture. And so they have no life-changing effect on people. You know, if scripture is sufficient, and 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 says it is, it means we're not required to believe or obey anything that's not written in scripture, but these people are spreading stories and teachings that have no basis in scripture.

And so people are, you know, there's a word for that in scripture, it's called being a false teacher, being a false prophet. And such people lead others away from the word of the gospel, away from salvation, away from what actually truly causes them to receive the Holy Spirit in the first place, which is the gospel as taught through the gospel.

So, but because of the amount of resources that these churches have, they have the attention of people in Africa everywhere, and we need money to compete with that. And so that's why I'm a fundraiser for Evergreen Publishing, which is the publishing ministry of Conrad.

And we're trying to spread sound doctrine, spread the true gospel, spread true discipleship that's word-based, you know, scripture-based. Let me just quickly tell everybody how we got started in, or how Conrad got started with his publishing ministry.

So Conrad noticed a number of needs within his church, and there was particular discipleship needs. So he noticed, say, for example, people didn't have a good theology of the family. They didn't have a good theology of gender roles.

They didn't have a theology of the Holy Spirit. And so Conrad began to do these seminars throughout the year, and he would write these handouts, reading material, and he would hand them out to his church.

And it really began to strengthen his church and equip his church. It's not only his church, but other churches. And if people don't know who Conrad Mbewe is, he is the John MacArthur of Africa. That is, you might not have heard his name here, but he is very well-respected there.

He is the man you wanna support. But people said, you know, Brother Conrad, you should print these things. You should print these as books. They make perfect little books that we could spread out to people.

So the challenge now has been, how do you publish little books, but you have to print them at US dollar a cost, but then you have to turn around and sell them in Africa? And if you just hand them out for free, what will happen is people will go, oh, I could sell this on the street market, and they'll never read it.

So what you want is you want to give it to people at the right price so that they'll take ownership of it, so that they'll read it.

That's right.

And yet we need as wealthier American churches and Christians and brothers and sisters, sorry, Christian brothers and sisters to also support this so that they can sell it at a reasonable price. They'd love to be able to hand this out, but that would take millions and millions of dollars.

But our goal is to get 10 ,000 or more every year to get enough books to train people every year. Every year, just get another batch of books out there, another seminar, another group study that is focused on sound doctrine in a needful area of the church.

So there's a backlog of these books that just need to be formatted, printed, and then brought into Africa and sold at a price that people can afford. That's what we're trying to do.

That's fantastic, brother. That's fantastic. And I will echo and confirm what you just said because I've been to Africa, I've been to South America as well and some of these countries.

And you really, you know, some people say,.

Oh, just give everything away for free. You know, freely you've received,.

Just give it all away.

But, I mean, okay, it does cost money to produce these things, but you're absolutely right. If you give it away for absolutely free, then the people there think it has no value. And chances are it'll get passed on to someone else or they'll try to sell it or it'll go into file 13.

You know, they'll deep six it and never be seen again. But if they pay just a little bit, not much, but just a little bit, then they take ownership. They think, oh, this has some value and they'll actually read it and they'll digest it.

And that's, you know, of course that's the whole point. So, yeah.

So there's no profit in this whatsoever other than eternal profit. There's no, you know, so this isn't some, you know, another state prosperity.

You're not going to buy some Gucci shoes or something like that.

Exactly, yeah. I don't think I've ever seen our dear brother in Gucci shoes, so. Yeah, so this is the great need. Now, I just want to make a quick segue here. We have a clip for everybody too, because people might ask, well, if I were to invest in this, if I were to make a donation today, what kind of project would my money go to?

And I asked that question to Conrad just the other day, literally yesterday. And I said, if people donated, could you tell them what kind of book projects are in the queue here, as it were, ready to go out?

And this is what he had to say. So what are some of the books that your publishing ministry will be putting into print? Can you give listeners an idea of the depth of materials that they would be supporting with their donations?

Well, for instance, right now we are working on a title entitled The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit. And you would know that one of the greatest difficulties that has beset the entire planet has been the runaway Pentecostalism that's wreaking havoc everywhere.

The basic idea here is not to simply point fingers at what is wrong, but to provide a sound theology, a sound doctrine on the person and work of the Holy Spirit as taught in the Bible. So that's one obvious example that I can think about, which is really just waiting for us to finish everything, have the funding, and out will go that book.

We've also got materials on the local church and the way in which it is run. We've got materials on godliness, the way in which the Bible teaches godliness. We've got materials on missions that we might see how we should go about church planting missions in everywhere.

We've got materials on even just issues to do with male-female relationships, marriage, the role of a father in the home, the role of a mother in the home, the role of a husband and wife in the home context, even the roles of children as they're being raised up in the home.

We've got all these various topics that have been addressed, but waiting to be put into print. We also have a lot of materials to do with historical figures, missionaries, like David Livingstone that are well-known out there, but not really known except for the name on continent.

Theologians like Jonathan Edwards, the material is there waiting to be printed. We've got individuals, again, talking about missionaries, William Carey, Adoniram Jackson, all these materials that are simply waiting for the finances so that they can be printed.

So we have a lot of this, and it's just waiting for funding and therefore getting the material typeset printed and put on the market here on African soil.

So as you can see, there's a lot of books that he has ready to go out, but what we need is we need your support for these books to go out. And I know the website, there's a website that you can go to to make a donation.

It is publishforafrica .com, and that's the word for F-O-R, publishforafrica .com, and you can do a secure donation through the PayPal link there. And it says we want 10 ,000 a year, but with the cost of paper going up, with the economic crises all over the world, I think we should try to focus on sending even more than that each year just to make sure we can reach our publishing goals.

So that's what we're trying to do, and that's what we need your help with today.

Yeah, yeah.

That's great, Greg. That's great. Well, this is a very worthwhile ministry, worthwhile project, and dear friends, there's a tremendous need. I can tell you, there's a tremendous need in Africa for good, sound teaching.

In fact, Greg, I don't think I've ever told you this before, but nine years or so ago, 2013, I was preaching in Uganda, and we had a number of different venues throughout the country, and I was teaching against the charismatic excesses and the prosperity gospel, and people were coming up to our native Ugandan pastor friend named Bill.

He was a good guy. He was not word of faith at all. He was helping us facilitate this tour, but after we were held at a conference, pastors would come up to Bill, and they would say, where did you find these Mzungus?

That's what they call a white man. Where did you find these Mzungus? Are you sure these are Americans? They could not believe that I was an American, and my friend Mike Miller, who went with me, was an American because all they've ever heard from American Christianity is what they see on Christian television, and they thought all American Christianity was TBN stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland and all that garbage, and they were absolutely shocked that we were American, so anything we can do to facilitate getting the good stuff out there, the good doctrinally sound stuff to Africa, that's a tremendous, tremendous need.

Think of this, your donation is spiritual warfare. I think of a Jonathan Edwards quote where Jonathan Edwards talks about, no sooner has true revival taken hold than the devil comes along, and he doesn't attack the church through persecutions, through troubles, but he attacks true revival through false religion, and that's the greatest attack that the devil has, and so if you can help get the word out, and there are true means that God has put in the hands of the church.

There's the means of giving. There's the means of faithful proclamation of the word of God. There's the entrusting these teachings to written pages. That's what we're trying to do. These are means of spiritual warfare that the gates of hell will not prevail against because what we are doing will contain the truth.

I also want to tell everybody, too, that we will make sure every dollar you donate gets to this project, so we have people go through PayPal. They take out a transaction fee. We look at what that transaction fee is, and our church adds that amount, so we'll make sure that if you put $100 in there, all $100 goes directly to this ministry, so we just want to make sure that everybody knows that.

There's no overhead fees. This is just, we're pouring our hearts into this to make sure that every dollar will make it into Africa, and we will work with you to make sure that your money gets there.

Oh, man, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. I think that's the first time I've heard that, said that if whatever transaction fee, we'll pick that up to make sure 100 of your money goes into where you want it to go.

It's that important.

It's that important.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, good on you.

Good on you.

Well, Greg, thank you very much, brother, for joining us today. Anything else you would

Yeah, again, it's publishforafrica .com, so www .publishforafrica .com, and there is a secure PayPal link, and when you make a donation there, it comes into our church account, and then we cut a checkout, and we get it to them as quickly as we possibly can, so publishforafrica .com is where you need to go.

We would love to see your followers pick up this ministry of generous giving, not for anybody's prosperity, but for the spread of the word of God, for a faithful teaching, and of faithful men like Dr. Conrad and Bailey.

Yes, indeed, indeed. Greg, thank you so much for joining us, brother. Thank you for your passion for this worthy cause, and may God bear good fruit through it.

Thank you, dear brother.

I appreciate it.

God bless.

You too.

Well, dear ones, thank you very much for joining me. I think most of you know me well enough by now that I would not promote to you any ministry that I did not have absolute 100 confidence in, and I've never asked any of my viewers to send me money, but there's been a couple of times I've encouraged you to support some worthwhile causes.

This is one of them, an important, important work, so thank you very much, dear ones. Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of his Holy Spirit.

Be with you all.