American evangelical Christians gathered to bid farewell in true testimony to renowned preacher Voddie Baucham Jr., a man widely considered a modern day hero of the Christian faith, at an emotive memorial service on Oct. 10 at Oak Cliff Bible Church, Dallas, Texas.
In attendance was a small group from the Reformed Baptist community in Zambia, the southern Africa country where Voddie lived for close to a decade, until moving back to the United States in December 2024.
Thousands of miles across the Atlantic, the day ended on a somber note for hundreds of Zambian evangelicals who hurriedly left their workplaces and chores to witness online the burial of a man who lived and served among them.
Voddie was not only a strong voice among conservative evangelical Christians in America, but also in Zambia, where he was a coveted household name among the Reformed Baptist church community. Here he won the hearts of many and became mentor, teacher, brother, uncle, friend and pastor to countless.
Simply put, Voddie held a semi-Zambian status conferred on him by his African community of friends. Zambia, which established itself as a Christian nation in its statutes, is the place where Voddie chose to settle together with his wife, Bridget, and seven of their youngest children for nearly a decade, from 2015 to 2024.
“Voddie coming to Zambia was an exception. He came to Africa as a witness. He was a gift sent to us by God,” said Conrad Mbewe in a moving tribute delivered at the funeral service. Mbewe, a close friend of Voddie’s, is an itinerant Reformed preacher at Kabwata Baptist Church, where Voddie and his family congregated.
Voddie’s relocation from Texas to sub-Saharan Africa was driven by a passion for sound, gospel-centered, indigenous theological education in this part of the world. He saw hope for the African continent through this lens and selflessly dedicated the next nine years of his life to this single mission through the African Christian University in Zambia.
“I was convinced that the ACU school of divinity would help meet that need. It is strategic work with the potential for both local and global impact for the cause of Christ,” Voddie posted on social media to answer why he moved halfway across the world with his family.
Mbewe said that despite having a growing and impactful ministry across the United States at the time of his relocation, Voddie’s decision to move to Zambia was born purely out of his walk with God.
What a delight it was to gather together last weekend at our 2025 Founders Seminary Convocation.
Our President Voddie Baucham delivered a powerful talk on what it means to have sharp minds, warm hearts, and steel spines.
The Lord has greatly blessed Founders Seminary thus far… pic.twitter.com/Ahtw9GDaol
— Founders Seminary (@FoundersSem) September 25, 2025
“Many people have asked me how I convinced Voddie to leave all this and come to Zambia. I offered him nothing! We were mere recipients of God’s servant and his family. If you were shocked by this, so were we!”
Pastor Voddie, as he was fondly called, was the founding dean of the School of Divinity at ACU, where for nine years he taught various courses, including theology, worldview and ethics, Bible exposition, evangelism, hermeneutics, apologetics, and philosophy of religion.
ACU is among the few Zambian higher learning institutions with an intentionally woven biblical worldview across all of its programs. This was just one of the many spaces where Voddie cultivated, nurtured, instructed, and won hearts and minds of young Zambians and Africans.
He was instrumental in launching the university’s advancement department responsible for raising funds and awareness about ACU. At the news of his death, ACU described Voddie as a fallen general, vision bearer, voice of verity, and man of valor.
“Dr. Baucham was instrumental in the development of the founding curriculum at the ACU, especially the core curriculum designed to shape the biblical worldview of students. He was key in laying the foundations for faculty development and the disputatio programme,” the university shared on its Facebook page.
Chipo Sakufiwa Makupe, deputy vice chancellor at ACU and one of Voddie’s protégés, said he flew the ACU’s flag as far and high as he could, and significantly contributed to the university’s development.
She described him as “an outstanding human being with a deep passion to share the gospel and ensure people heard the truth.”
At ACU, Voddie indeed helped students learn how to debate the right way. “It was something to look forward to and the students who learned under him could attest to that,” Makupe said
Mbewe said his “life screeched to a halt” at the news of Voddie’s passing. His relationship with the Voddie spans nearly two decades, during which their families became close. However, despite both being itinerant preachers with global reaches among conservative Christian evangelicals, the two had never met prior to 2006.
They met for the first time the following year after being introduced by prominent American Reformed evangelist Paul Washer, who visited Zambia for ministry. According to Mbewe, Voddie’s first time visiting Zambia was love at first sight, and he immediately endeared himself to the Zambian and African Christians who attended this conference.
“What we did not realize was that Voddie also fell in love with Zambia and decided he wanted to move and serve Christ’s church in our country.”
He would return to Zambia several times after that initial preaching engagement in 2007. “Voddie came again to preach at the Zambia Reformed Conference in 2008, 2011, 2012, and 2014. He was no doubt our favorite preacher,” Mbewe recounted.
“Voddie came to Zambia because he had a love for the Zambian people and for Africa in general. He came to Africa to bear witness about the light. He made sure he was not mistaken for the Light.”
Mbewe said Voddie never went out of his way to be a celebrity pastor and just wanted the gospel of Jesus Christ that saved him to impact lives wherever he preached, describing him as a gifted communicator of the gospel and saying this was what drew the crowds to him.
“That was why he had no difficulty going into an obscure part of Africa to gladly serve there for almost a decade. Voddie was passionate about the truth.”
Mbewe interviewed both Voddie and Bridget for membership at KBC, recalling that Voddie clearly stated his intentions to serve as a member of the local church and at ACU in any way the church wanted him to. “That was precisely what he did until he left,” Mbewe said.
Voddie began to preach at KBC as monthly sermon listeners exponentially soared from around 300 to about 18,000 per sermon. “It was his sermons that brought in the thousands of listeners,” noted Mbewe.
Mbewe and his wife, Felistas, stepped in to help the Bauchams’ transition into African life less bumpy, and his youngest daughter, Mwape, took an immediate affinity to the Bauchams. She soon volunteered to help look after the younger Baucham children.
The mighty man Voddie Baucham was laid to rest this afternoon in Dallas, TX alongside a splashing fountain. “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, looking forward to the resurrection in the likeness of Jesus.” pic.twitter.com/HSNYmIrnAQ
— Reformed Baptist Network (@RefBapNet) October 10, 2025
Voddie moved from KBC to a different area of Lusaka city to help nurture a young church planter. He spent the next four years at Hillview Baptist Church mentoring Mwindula Mbewe, pastor of the newly establish congregation.
“It soon dawned on me that he had decided to join me at my new church. Voddie was an exceptionally gifted man and his preaching greatly impacted his new church community,” Mwindula told The Western Journal in an interview.
He described Voddie as a genius. “It was amazing to see how his mind worked and caught insights on the text, on the go. He told me once that he preached from a table rather than actual notes. That was Voddie. Just remarkably gifted!”
Mwindula spoke fondly of one of his profound memories of the towering giant, when Voddie expressed concern about his preaching not having sufficient gospel in them.
“There is no gospel in your sermons, man! And that begun my journey of learning to preach the gospel in every sermon.” He explained that Voddie insisted that the main point of each sermon should ultimately be the exaltation of Christ’s person and work.
He said Voddie was a culture warrior who had an exceptional ability to analyze society and show how God’s word challenged it.
“One other thing he texted me about all the time perhaps only second to his texts about his children, were cultural issues in America that concerned him. He followed the news and trends of culture conscience very carefully.”
Mwindula said Voddie had a knack for unique perspectives. “I was amazed when he told me that he wrote his bestselling book ‘Fault Lines’ in a matter of weeks due to a tight deadline because the book needed to come out at the height of the Black Lives Matter movements, to strike while the iron was hot.”
The Reformed Baptist community in Zambia will be holding a special joint memorial service for Voddie on Nov. 1. “Voddie was a gift to all of us, he was our favorite conference preacher and worked tirelessly to further the cause of our joint project, the African Christian University. He counseled, mentored, and ministered among us for those many years,” a statement from the local Reformed churches announced.
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