Reinhard Bonnke, Africa's Greatest Evangelist, Perhaps The World's

In your name I will stop playing marbles and start moving mountains

In 1973 Reinhard Bonnke had a problem. He was a German Pentecostal missionary with a passion for the Gospel in Maseru, South West Africa, and not many were coming to his meetings. Sometimes there were five; on a good day fifty. So he booked a large hall and invited a big name evangelist with a healing ministry from South Africa. The hall filled up on the first night and early the next morning the church was even more crowded. Bonnke went to collect the speaker, but was stunned to find the evangelist was packing his bags. The Holy Spirit had told him to leave. Driving back to the church Bonnke cried out to God: ‘I am not a big name preacher, I am a missionary, one of your little men, but Lord I will preach today and I believe that you will work miracles. In your name I will stop playing marbles and start moving mountains.’

There was dejection in the crowd when they saw the big name evangelist wasn’t there, but when Bonnke started preaching, the air was charged with the presence of God, so much so that his interpreter collapsed. After pulling the translator to his feet, Bonnke believed the Holy Spirit told him to pray for the blind. So he asked the blind to stand. Six did. With the devil taunting him that soon all the witch doctors would be mocking him, Bonnke cried out, ‘In the name of Jesus, blind eyes be opened!’ Nothing happened. Then suddenly a blind woman screamed out, ‘I can see! I can see’ and she came rushing to the front. After this a small crippled infant boy was handed over the heads of the crowd to the platform. Bonnke prayed. The boy was healed and started running around. The place erupted[1]. Many were saved that night.

120 million at meetings, 55 million saved

Since that night Reinhard Bonnke has now preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in person to over 120 million people in some of the largest Christian meetings ever witnessed in church history. In Lagos in November 2000 there were 1.6 million people at one event. All those who make commitments to Christ fill in a follow up form, so Bonnke is not guessing when he says that 55 million people have found salvation through his ministry.

Most of his evangelistic meetings have been all over Africa, in the big capitals like Harare or Nairobi with large numbers of Christians. But he has also preached in places where other religious traditions are very strong, like northern Nigeria or the Sudan and he goes to places many wouldn’t have heard of, like Bangui in the Central African Republic, or Douala in Cameroon. He is without doubt Africa’s greatest evangelist. However Bonnke has long been active beyond Africa. He has held massive evangelistic meetings in the Ukraine, Brazil, India, and Indonesia; he has also held large conferences for pastors in the West; and in Europe he has sent every household a copy of his evangelistic booklet, ‘Minus to Plus’. Some might argue he is today the world’s greatest evangelist. It is wise to ask what lies behind Reinhard Bonnke’s success.

The Call of God: ‘Africa shall be saved’.

The most important reason for Bonnke’s success is the mystery of the call of God on his life to be an evangelist to Africa. It is not a ministry he either chose or created: it was something given to him by God. The youngest son of a poor German family that had barely survived the war, Reinhard Bonnke, now 71, still vividly remembers how he became a Christian and was called to Africa when just a ten year old boy,

He had stolen from his mother’s purse to buy some sweets and she had told him something frightening: ‘Reinhard, you know it’s wrong to steal. Doing this means you are on your way to hell. This is why Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is why he had to die on the cross, to save us from our sins.’ Bonnke writes, ‘At that moment something happened in my heart. That was the moment of my salvation when she prayed for me.’ Later that year, while listening to visiting missionaries at the Pentecostal church, he clearly heard God tell him that one day he would go to Africa. His father asked him how he was so sure. His reply was, ‘Papa, I know I have a real call from God. I know, I know, I know.’

The call was confirmed by two separate visions. When Reinhard was still just ten and attending the local church prayer meeting a woman had a vision of a white boy breaking bread in front of thousands of black people. She turned to Reinhard and said, ‘You are that boy.’ Seven years later Reinhard himself had a vision. He saw a map of Africa with just one place marked on it: Johannesburg. Several years later the mission Reinhard and his young wife Anni had applied to wanted to send the couple to Zambia. But Reinhard insisted on going to South Africa, because of this vision. It was in Lesotho that Reinhard had probably the most dramatic evidence that God was calling him for the whole of Africa. For four consecutive nights he dreamt of a map of Africa washed in red blood. The Holy Spirit said, ‘This is the blood of Jesus. Africa shall be saved’. The calling in this dream has never left him. From then on he started telling whoever would listen that the Gospel would be preached from Cape Town to Cairo – not because of who he was, but because of Who had called him.

Listening To The Holy Spirit, and Obeying

After God’s call, there is no doubt that the most important reason for Reinhard Bonnke’s success is that from early in his Christian walk he learned to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey. There are numerous examples. When Bonnke was nineteen he visited the UK with a group of young Germans and while there someone told him about the Bible College in Swansea started by the great man of faith, Rees Howells. [2] The Holy Spirit witnessed in his heart that this is where he should study. But his parents and church told him he should go to the local German Pentecostal Bible College. Bonnke obeyed the Holy Spirit, and went to Wales. The Holy Spirit knew best. Here he learned English, the language he has preached to over 120 million people in. And here he learned how to live by faith. The college made no appeal for funds. The students and staff would only pray. Once Reinhard Bonnke gave away all his own money to a visiting missionary to live by faith for all his personal needs. The first thing he had to pray for was money to buy a postage stamp. He rejoiced when God supplied this need. Later he and a friend were invited to preach for children at a nearby seaside town. He had the funds for the bus journey there, but not for the return. He told his friend God would supply. After preaching they were very pleased when a pastor invited them for some tea. Surely he would supply their needs. The pastor paid for the tea, but didn’t give them any money. The last bus was due to leave soon. Then suddenly, a complete stranger, a woman who had heard them preach, came up to them and gave them a small gift – enough to buy the bus tickets. Such training by the Holy Spirit in God’s laws of supply would prove invaluable in the years ahead.

Listening to the Holy Spirit brought about a remarkable meeting between the young Bonnke and one of Britain’s greatest evangelists. Once on his way back home from Wales to Germany, Reinhard had to spend some hours in London. He ended up walking around Clapham and to his surprise he was looking up at a board with the name of George Jeffreys on it. Reinhard Bonnke had read all about George Jeffreys, a powerful evangelist and founder of the Elim Pentecostal Church[3]. Bonnke thought he must now be dead and was about to walk on. But the Holy Spirit told him to knock on the door. He listened – and obeyed. The house keeper who answered the door told Bonnke that Mr Jeffreys was still alive, but he did not receive visitors. But then the old man’s voice was heard, ‘Let him in’. And soit happened that one of the greatest evangelists of the early 20^th C, just weeks before his death, laid hands on a young man who would become one of the greatest evangelists of the late 20^th C. It happened because Reinhard Bonnke listens and obeys the voice of the Holy Spirit. This listening and obeying which he learned as a young man, has been at the centre of all he has done since then.

A year or so after the dramatic meeting in Maseru in 1973, the Holy Spirit told Bonnke to go to Gaborone in Botswana. As he had no money he walked to the city from the airport – listening. The Holy Spirit told him to turn to the left and he found himself outside the country’s national stadium which could seat 10,000. ‘You will preach my name here’, he heard the Holy Spirit say.  Local pastors told him to just book halls, but he obeyed the Holy Spirit and booked that stadium for the final night of his campaign. At its start hardly any were coming. But then God worked miracles to confirm His Gospel and on the last night the stadium was packed. Hundreds gave their lives to Christ, but the Holy Spirit asked Bonnke to do more, to pray for people to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. At first he felt uncomfortable; this was for a more private setting, not a stadium. But he obeyed. About a thousand came forward to be prayed for, and after Bonnke prayed ‘it was though a tornado had swept over them. In a matter of seconds they were flattened to the ground and began speaking in tongues.’ After this there was no turning back for Reinhard Bonnke’s ministry in Africa. It went from strength to strength, and at its heart was a man who listened to the Holy Spirit and obeyed.

Single Minded Evangelist

Reinhard Bonnke knows he only has one job: to be the evangelist. ‘I preach salvation always’ he says. ‘I keep repeating the message of the Cross and Salvation again, and again, and again...and I repeat those messages that bring the best response because I want to see people in heaven.’[4] This is his only work, and he says, with characteristic humour, ‘I am no good at anything except preaching the Gospel’. That is not strictly true because he has written over twenty books, mainly about evangelism. Nearly 200 million copies of his follow up literature have been published in over 100 languages.

But he is very good at preaching the Gospel.  His passion is obvious as soon as he springs to his feet to preach[5]. He has laser like intensity. He is very earnest and sincere. He is a master story teller, so whether we have heard the Bible story a thousand times or never we want to go on listening. And though he is very emotional, he is primarily appealing to people’s minds and wills. He keeps on asking rhetorical questions, so the listener is kept interested, and has to think whether they agree with the answer. Bonnke often preaches on the woman caught in adultery (John 8: 1-11) as he believes this is the best story for presenting the Gospel. He brilliantly draws in the listener. He declares how indeed the woman did deserve to die – and how as sinners we all deserve to die; he explains with some humour why her accusers could not cast a stone; we hear how the sinless Jesus is the only one who did have the right to throw a stone; and now Bonnke’s single minded evangelistic preaching shines powerfully on the heart of the Gospel. God’s law demands that the sinner must die. So why doesn’t Jesus throw a stone? How can He just forgive? The answer: because He was on his way to be executed for her sin. He died in her place. He died in our place. This is the Gospel. This preaching is incredibly clear, as one local pastor in Africa said, ‘Reinhard Bonnke’s preaching is understood by the woman at the market and that’s why the crowds respond so well.’

In some media reports there is an emphasis put on the supernatural that makes it look as if Bonnke meetings are held for people to be healed. This is entirely wrong. Reinhard Bonnke is not a faith healer and he has never held a faith healing meeting. He is a single minded evangelist whose number one passion is to see people giving their hearts to Jesus Christ for salvation. ‘When I lead them (crowds as large as 1.6 million) into the prayer of salvation, I felt as if I heard an echo for heaven. I realized my mortal lips preached the eternal Gospel...and all heaven is involved when sinners get saved on earth.’[6] It is the Gospel that motivates Reinhard Bonnke, not miracles. And he knows that the greatness of his meetings is testament to the greatness of the Gospel. ‘We don’t need to pray for power’ he says, ‘The Gospel is power. When it is preached it is released and it does its own glorious work.’ Nevertheless, as it was during the days of the Acts of the Apostles, so now the evangelist can pray that when he or she preaches with boldness, so God would stretch out his hand to heal and perform wonders to confirm the truth of the Gospel. Reinhard Bonnke believes the Holy Spirit is waiting for the preacher to witness to the Gospel, ‘so that He can connect with that witness and the Gospel becomes an event.’[7] Since that meeting in 1973 there have been constant reports of healings, and there have been hundreds of thousands of exorcisms. For in all his meetings Bonnke demands that all charms and items linked to witchcraft are burnt. It is also claimed Daniel Ekechuk, was raised from the dead while Bonnke was preaching[8]. Sceptics spend much time undermining the validity of these miracles, but it is not a wise use of their time since the central event in Reinhard Bonnke’s ministry is the validity of the Gospel, not the miracles.  The Gospel is where Reinhard Bonnke’s single minded focus is. And as seen by the millions who have filled in follow up forms at the meetings, and have gone on to be faithful Christians for many years, the Gospel preached by Bonnke has certainly proved to be valid, miraculously changing lives forever.

There have been set-backs: in 1990 in Uganda police armed with AK-47 rifles broke up a Bonnke meeting; in 1991 in Nigeria around 8,000 religious fanatics set churches alight and murdered Christians; three of Bonnke’s team have been killed in road accidents[9]. But these set-backs have only made Bonnke more single minded. While thankfully nobody died, perhaps the most dramatic set-back he faced involved a tent. In 1976 he used a tent for his meetings that could only seat 800 people. It was nowhere near big enough and the Holy Spirit said, ‘Trust me for a tent for 10,000’. Despite people telling him this would be impossible, Bonnke did just that and in 1978 he was using a large yellow tent that seated 10,000. But soon this tent was not big enough and in February 1984 Bonnke dedicated the largest tent in the world for evangelism. Known simply as the ‘Big Tent’, it held 30,000 people.

Three months later this tent was no more. In Cape Town during the early hours of Sunday 6^th May winds of 120 mph ripped the roof of the tent away, leaving just the bare metal masts. Grown men wept. This was a terrible set-back for the whole mission of taking the Gospel across Africa, and specifically for Cape Town. It was assumed the mission to the city would be cancelled. But as the campaign committee gathered to pray, and Pastor David Onions released a powerful prophesy: ‘My glory shall be the canopy that covers the people and the praises of my people shall be the pillars’. Bonnke’s team took this to heart and decided to preach the Gospel in the open air. When the crowds grew to over 70,000, far more than even the big tent could have coped with, Bonnke knew prayer had been answered. God had turned a tragedy into a triumph. As the crowds coming to his meetings continued to grow, though the ‘Big Tent’ was repaired, Bonnke never used it again. He gave it to another evangelist. The ‘Big Tent’ was a tremendously exciting project, but Bonnke neither allowed its excitement, nor the tragedy of its destruction, to distract him from his single minded purpose on this earth: to be an evangelist.

Apart from his happy family life, Reinhard has no other occupation apart from preaching the Gospel. It consumes all his energy, and he often drives himself to physical exhaustion. Furthermore his single minded commitment moulds his life style. The celebrity evangelist way of living is anathema to him. He lives in a modest house in Frankfurt, Germany near his offices, and his team testifies to the absolute integrity in money matters. He will not even use a ministry postage stamp for his personal use. Likewise his relationship with his sixty plus strong team is moulded by the cause of the Gospel. He is a great encourager, but such is his passion for the Gospel that there can be no excuse for laziness or negligence. Likewise he demands the highest moral standards from himself and all his team. For the reputation of the Gospel is at stake. Bonnke is very serious about this, and he has warned his team that if someone were to fall into serious sin it would not just be their future he would consider, but the future of the whole ministry.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow for Reinhard Bonnke will be preaching the Gospel. Already this year (2012) he has preached at massive meetings in Liberia and Burkina Faso. Though 71 there is no look in his face that he is planning to resign. He will keep on preaching. And he will keep on being successful, because there is a sovereign call of God on his life, because he listens and obeys the Holy Spirit, and because he has single minded devotion to the task. The encouragement he leaves us for our tomorrows is that we too can be successful in whatever field God has called us to - if we are also obedient and single minded.

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[1] For the full details of this story see ‘Reinhard Bonnke: A Passion For The Gospel’ by Colin Whittaker published 1998 by Kingsway publishers. Most of this article is based on material presented in this book.

[2] To discover more about this remarkable man see ‘Rees Howells: Intercessor’ by Norman Grub, published by CLC. Available in English.

[3] Kensington Temple (KT), a large Pentecostal church in London, looks to George Jeffereys as their spiritual father.

[4] Taken form ‘Preaching Where The Spirit Moves: An Interview With Reinhard Bonnke’  www.preaching.com

[5] It is well worth watching Reinhard Bonnke preach on YouTube. There are many clips to choose from.

[6] Reinhard Bonnke: Living A Life Of Fire www.thevoicemagazine.com

[7] Preaching Where The Spirit Moves: An Interview With Reinhard Bonnke www.preaching.com

[8] Daniel Ekechuk died in a car accident on Friday November 30^th, 200. His wife believed God would raise her husband back to life and took the corpse on Sunday December 2^nd to the basement of a church in Onitsha, Nigeria, where Bonnke was preaching. During the sermon, Daniel Ekechuk began to breathe again. Since then Daniel Ekechuk has shared his experiences with thousands. 

[9] Horst Kosanke and Milton Kasselman (died 1985 Zambia); Stephen Muya (died 1997 East Africa)