Reinhard Bonnke- German-American Pentecostal Preacher And Missionary
Reinhard Bonnke- German-American Pentecostal Preacher And Missionary
Reinhard Bonnke was a German-American Pentecostal preacher who died on December 7, 2019. He was born on April 19, 1940, and died on December 7, 2019. Since 1967, Bonnke had been a missionary and preacher in Africa.
Early Years
Reinhard Bonnke was born in East Prussia, Germany, on April 19, 1940. His father was an army supply officer. During the evacuation of East Prussia, his mother and brothers took him to Denmark, where he lived in a center for displaced people for a few years. His father became a preacher after serving in the war. He became a new Christian after his mother talked to him about a mistake he had done when he was nine years old. He felt called by God to be a missionary in Africa when he was 10 years old, and he said he was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Bonnke went to school at the Bible College of Wales in Swansea, Wales, UK. There, the head, Samuel Rees Howells, gave him a lot of ideas. Howells talked about answered prayers at one meeting. After this meeting, Bonnke prayed, “Lord, I want to be a man of faith, too.” I want to know how you take care of needs.” When he was in London, he met minister George Jeffreys by chance. Jeffreys gave the young student some advice. After he graduated, he went to Germany to be a preacher for seven years.
Mission in Africa
His work in Africa started in Lesotho in 1967. After that, he went all over the continent to hold evangelistic talks.
In the first few years of his work, Bonnke’s efforts to spread the gospel didn’t go very well, and he was upset by how slowly things were going. He said that he had a repeated dream in which the map of Africa was covered in red and he heard God say, “Africa Shall Be Saved.” This made him decide to do evangelism on a big scale instead of the traditional small-scale missionary work. He rented a field in Gaborone, Botswana, and preached there, even though churches there didn’t help him much. About 100 people showed up to the first talks, but that number grew over time.
Bonnke began the service group Christ For All Nations (CfaN) in 1974. The offices used to be in Johannesburg, South Africa, but in 1986, they moved to Frankfurt, Germany. This was mostly done to separate the group from the apartheid policy of South Africa at the time. CfaN now has 9 offices on 5 different countries.
Bonnke started his ministry by having meetings in tents that were big enough for a lot of people to come. According to a story published by the Christian Broadcasting Network, in 1984 he ordered the building of what was said to be the world’s largest mobile structure: a tent that could hold 34,000 people. This tent was destroyed by a storm right before a big meeting, so the team decided to hold the meeting outside instead. According to this story, over 100,000 people ended up going to the event, which is a lot more than the 34,000 seats that the tents could have held.
Bonnke held many campaigns in other African countries, like Nigeria and Kenya, as well as South Africa. He became known as “the Billy Graham of Africa.”[13][14] Corrie Cutrer, a journalist, wrote in Graham’s Christianity Today on February 5, 2001, that Bonnke’s recent events in Nigeria had “record-breaking attendance.”[15] Bonnke said that his “farewell gospel crusade” would be held in November 2017 in Lagos, Nigeria. In 2000, a gospel crusade was held in Lagos. According to CfaN, it was the organization’s biggest event to date, with six million people in attendance.[16] Reinhard Bonnke was scheduled to be the main speaker at the G12 Africa Conference in Pretoria, South Africa, in 2019.
Controversy
In 1991, when Bonnke went to the Nigerian city of Kano, there were riots because Muslims were upset about what he was said to have said about Islam in the city of Kaduna on his way to Kano. There was a rumor that Bonnke was going to “lead an invasion” into Kano. Muslim teens met at the Kofar Mata Eide-ground, where several clerics told them that Bonnke was going to insult Islam. About 8,000 young people met at the Emir’s palace, and riots broke out after noon prayers. During the riots, many Christians were hurt in different ways, and several churches were burned. Reports from the government say that at least eight people died, Even though some news stories say the number is much higher.
After that, Bonnke tried to go back to Nigeria, but the Nigerian Embassy turned down his visa requests.
In 2000, Nigeria got a new democratic government. President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a Christian, asked Reinhard Bonnke to come back to the country. Bonnke went back to Nigeria and ran for office in the southern city of Benin City. He would reject rumors that the Council of Ulamas in the Northern Region of Nigeria had told him he couldn’t go to northern Nigeria.
After the year 2000, Bonnke ran for office in Nigeria several times. In 2017, his last campaign outside of Africa took place in Lagos.
Personal life
Bonnke led a number of groups in Rendsburg after he graduated from the Bible College of Wales and moved back to Germany. People from all over Germany and the rest of the world started to ask him to speak. Bonnke met Anni Suelze at a gospel music event and was impressed by how she handled losing a music competition because of a mistake. He offered to speak at the church she went to, and as time went on, the two of them fell in love. In 1964, they got married and had three children.
Death
Bonnke died on 7 December 2019. The month before, he said on his public Facebook page that he had had femur surgery and needed time to “learn how to walk again.” Nigeria’s Muslim president, Muhammadu Buhari, praised Bonnke for coming to Nigeria so often and said that his death was “a great loss for Nigeria.”
It is thought that Bonnke’s preaching led more than 79 million people to become Christians. People called him “a giant and a general in God’s army.”
Bibliography
Bonnke wrote several books, such as;
Even More Conversions by Fire Faith is the key to God’s power.
Hell Is Empty, Heaven Is Full: Powerful Signs
Raised from the Dead: Taking Action:
(Autobiography) Living a Life of Fire
Autobiography
Living a Life of Fire is Bonnke’s autobiography. It is a collection of stories from his life, like how he grew up during the Second World War and lived in prison camps, and how he thought God used him to bring the message of salvation to Africa during his early years in ministry.
