Reinhard Bonnke was a German Pentecostal evangelist born on April 19, 1940. He was known for his gospel missions throughout the African continent.
Bonnke since the year 1967 has been an evangelist and missionary in Africa and he has overseen 75 million recorded conversions to Christ.
Reinhard Bonnke Age
He was born on the 19th of April 1940 in Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany. He was 79 years old as of the time of his death.
Reinhard Bonnke Wife
Bonnke met his wife Anni Suelze at a gospel music festival and admired the grace with which she recovered from a wrongly pitched music performance at the expense of losing the competition.
He preached at the church she attended one Sunday and fell in love with her. They got married in the year 1964 and together had three children and eight grandchildren.
Reinhard Bonnke Death
The worldwide known evangelist died at 77. According to family sources, Bonnke passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family, on Saturday, December 7 2019.
Reinhard Bonnke Ministry
Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is principally known for his Great Gospel Crusades throughout the Continent of Africa. The son of a pastor, Reinhard gave his life to the Lord at age nine and heard the call to the African mission field before he was even a teenager.
After attending Bible College in Wales, and his ordination in Germany he pastored a church and then went on to start missionary work in Africa. It was there, in the small mountain kingdom of Lesotho, that God placed upon his heart the vision of ‘the continent of Africa, being washed in the precious Blood of Jesus’ — an entire continent, from Cape Town to Cairo and from Dakar to Djibouti that needed to be reached and to hear the proclamation of the sign-following Gospel.
Evangelist Bonnke began holding meetings in a tent that accommodated just 800 people, but, as attendance steadily increased, larger and larger tents had to be purchased, until finally, in 1984, he commissioned the construction of the world’s largest mobile structure — a tent capable of seating 34,000 people!
Soon, attendance at his meetings even exceeded the capacity of this huge structure, and he began open-air Gospel Campaigns with an initial gathering of over 150,000 people per service! Since then, he has conducted city-wide meetings across the continent with as many as 1,600,000 people attending a single meeting using towering sound systems that can be heard for miles.
It has now been forty-five years since Reinhard Bonnke founded the international ministry of Christ for all Nations (CfaN), which currently has offices in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Nigeria, South Africa, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong.
Since 1987, through a host of major events in Africa and other parts of the world, the ministry has recorded more than 77 million documented decisions for Jesus Christ.
As part of the discipleship-training program, 185 million copies of CfaN follow-up literature have been published in 103 languages and printed in 55 countries. Millions of books have been printed and freely ‘seeded‘ in nations around the world. All this is in addition to the Reinhard Bonnke School of Fire, an online, self-study course, aimed at inspiring others to Holy Spirit Evangelism and leading to either a certificate or university credits.
Reinhard Bonnke is also recognized for hosting ‘Fire Conferences’ in many different countries of the world, events that are aimed at equipping church leaders and workers for evangelism; for distributing over 95,500,000 copies of Minus to Plus, a profound salvation message, to homes around the world; and for seeking every opportunity to reach and to save the lost.
Things to Know about Reinhard Bonnke
1. Evangelist Reinhard Willi Gottfried Bonnke was born on April 19, 1940.
2. His father was a pastor and ex-serviceman in the German Army father.
3. Bonnke hailed from Königsberg, East Prussia, Germany.
4. Bonnke started his ministry very early in life as he gave his life to Christ at the age of nine after his mother told him of his sins.
5. The late evangelist started his missionary work in Africa when he was 10 where he claimed to have had an encounter with the Holy Spirit.
6. He later attended a Bible College in Wales but he was ordained in Germany, where he pastored a church.
7. He left to start his missionary work in Africa in 1969 in Lesotho where he claimed to have seen ‘Africa, being washed in the precious Blood of Jesus.’
8. The vision for his entire ministry was to reach people by spreading the Gospel thus he started open-air Gospel Campaigns where he conducted city-wide meetings across the continent and founded the international ministry of Christ for all Nations (CfaN).
9. His ministry has recorded over 75 million people who gave their lives to Christ.
10. The evangelist also preached the gospel through inspirational movies via his Reinhard Bonnke School of Fire and lately his Full Flame Film Series, a series of eight inspirational films.
11. Evangelist Bonnke wrote over 40 books including an autobiography titled Living a Life of Fire.