Jacobus Van Schalkwyk lives in Eswatini, a small African country bordered by South Africa and Mozambique. He is a faithful Christian and attends Mbabane Chapel, where he has been a member with his wife and children for some time. A few years ago the church experienced a change that made a big impact on Jacobus and his family’s lives – they employed a new pastor, Pastor Mokululi Ncube.
Pastor Mokululi has been trained through the Langham Preaching program of training, and now coordinates Langham Preaching Clubs in Eswatini. He sees a big problem with how the Bible is often taught in Africa and is eager to see it change. “The gospel message is not clearly taught, and its full implications are not clearly revealed to people,” Mokululi says.
Speaking and applying the truth
Prior to Pastor Mokululi joining their church, Jacobus often felt the messages preached were confusing. It was hard to understand what the Bible was saying and then how to live in response.
He explains, “We’d come into church and we’d have a message preached. But it would be something that would go over your head and you couldn’t draw that real-life application from.”
Now that he is learning from Pastor Mokululi, Jacobus is often convicted and moved to act by the truth. He says, “One thing I’ve appreciated about Pastor Mokululi is the way he preaches and you know that he’s speaking the truth. Sometimes I’ve been in churches where you feel the message is going over your head. But when Pastor Mokululi is bringing it to us he’s really bringing it as it applies to our lives.”
Jacobus describes how a series in Colossians helped him understand his sinfulness and how to be more godly as a father and a husband. He reflects, “A big one for me in Colossians is marriage, especially about a husband’s role to his wife and how he’s been called to love his wife. To be honest, I’ve been selfish in a lot of ways. How we think we are supposed to love is actually not God’s way. So it has really shown me that that type of love is a sacrificial love.”
Stepping into lay preaching
Before Pastor Mokululi came to Mbabane Chapel Jacobus had done some lay preaching, but now he has been really challenged to “get the basics right”.
He was given the book ‘God’s Word for Today’s World’ by John Stott and discovered a lot by reading it. Jacobus shares, “When I read that Langham book, I learned a few things. I got a confirmation from the Spirit that Jesus is the key. He is the Word. So it’s almost looking at the Word through him. It [also] helped me understand more about grace.”
Jacobus is also hoping to get involved in Langham Preaching training with Pastor Mokululi. He’s been impacted by how Pastor Mokului preaches, having been trained by Langham, and sees how it could help him.
Jacobus says, “It’s something that I could use to train myself, to handle the Word of God and to prepare sermons.”
The way that Pastor Mokululi talks about Langham Preaching gives Jacobus great confidence. He explains, “Pastor Mokului is passionate about it. And one thing he tells me is that [in the preaching club] the Pastors hold each other accountable for their preaching. I think it’s also important that there’s accountability.”
God willing, Jacobus hopes to see many people in Eswatini utilise the training and the structure of preaching clubs. He says, “I think it could be very helpful for anybody as a young preacher or someone who wants to go into the ministry to get the material and get trained in it. The Lord Jesus said, ‘You will know them by their fruits’. And I’ve seen the fruits.”