A life in Ministry

The Life of Reinhard Bonnke.

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I’m with Dr Tony Stone from Stourbridge and we are talking about the life of Reinhard Bonnke, Now Tony you were a board member of CFAN, Christ for all nations here in the UK, What was it like for you being a board member?

Well there were many advantages of course because we got information very quickly of what was happening anywhere, but it was just such a privilege to be able to share with such a ministry as Christ for all nations and it gave me opportunity to get to know Reinhard Bonnke in a very special way.

Did you know Reinhard personally and what was he like personally?

Its always a difficult question to answer because Reinhard Bonnke was a very humble man, He was very powerful in ministry and someone who was very easy to be friends with.

Now Reinhard was know for his gospel crusades in Africa, did you get a chance to go to some of those crusades?

Yes I had that privilege and it was just amazing to go quite a number of times actually, Mostly for crusades in Nigeria but it was very, very special.

What was it like seeing 1000’s of Africans in these crusades?

Again it is very hard to describe I remember the very first time I went was to a place called Akura in Nigeria Africa and I had seen videos and heard reports but to see it with your own eyes is so amazing, there were over half a million people present and when Evangelist Bonnke gave the invitation for people to respond to the gospel, it seemed that hands were going up everywhere and it is almost overwhelming, very similar to when he prays for the sick as well.

Of course he was known for the huge crowds that would come to his crusades as well wasn’t he?

Yes of course and I was privileged to be in Lagos when he had over a million people in one service.

Did he have a passion for Africa?

I believe he had a very distinct call to Africa, If every you get the opportunity of reading his Autobiography or other books that are written about him you will soon discover there was a very clear and distinct call to work in Africa from the South right up to the North.

What was Reinhard’s message for Africa?

He was like any evangelist of note, he was very clear in his message that Christ was the answer and there was salvation in no other and he was very faithful to preach the gospel in its simplicity and very biblically, he stuck very close to the bible and it gave me a reminder of listening to Billy Graham in my earlier years, where Billy Graham became known for the phrase “The Bible says” and in a sense that was echoed in the ministry of Reinhard Bonnke .

I guess there will be many, many people in heaven today because of the preaching of Reinhard Bonnke, How many people got saved through his ministry?

The records say it was somewhere around 79 million people over the years of active ministry of course you can multiply that because one person will get saved in a Reinhard Bonnke crusade and then they will go and share it with their family and share it with their friends and so there is a multiplication, So I don’t think you can very easily put a number on it, but it was absolutely mind boggling staggering figures, going up into the multiple millions.

Now you were involved in the minus to plus evangelistic crusade that happened here in the UK what was that like working with that?

I found it again very challenging and very exiting and it was a lot of work because we were…. The whole point of minus to plus was to get the gospel in literature into every home in the United Kingdom and it was just one amazing vision, but as we worked on it we could see that it was possible and doing it daily for over a year in preparation was a real challenge but also so exiting particularly when the first books, minus to plus books began to go out and letters began to flood into the office from people who were responding to the gospel through that media.

Was this a huge success? Did you get lots of people responding to the message?

Absolutely amazing, again I find it very difficult to find words to describe things but they were incredible and a great work of the Holy Spirit, when you realise that you talk about every address it means from Buckingham Palace and the Queen right down to people living in the lowest form of accommodation, as long as their was an address.

One of the things that we discovered early is of course that in the prisons for example, the prisoners do not have individual addresses and so quite early on the Chaplin service for the prisons, the chaplains who serve in the prisons through their leadership agreed that they would distribute every cell and that was done a little before the main distribution, through the postal services and so the first responses we had were actually from the prisons and it was quite emotional really as these people who were in prison for various crimes responded to the gospel and we had the privilege through the chaplaincies again of following them through.

Now he was a very powerful man on stage, was he like that in private?

I said earlier he was a very humble man, he was a peoples person, you could talk to him very easily and people that really wanted to meet him, he never shooed them away, he was always open to meet people, he delighted to meet people , But his humility and his graciousness were outstanding.

And of course Reinhard was known for miracles as well.

That was one of the outstanding things, the signs and wonders that followed the preaching of the gospel was again under a great anointing and in every meeting we used to whiteness the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking and of course there are many documented accounts of the dead being raised.

What is your fondest memory of Reinhard?

I think it has to be the personal level, that this man that was so well known and so powerfully used and so incredibly busy always had time for personal friendships and he would give a personal telephone call or if I was able to get to a meeting where he was, he would always single you out, he was a very, very admirable person that you always felt it was a privilege to know.

Now you also worked with Evangelist Dr Billy Graham, where they both very different?

In many ways they were individuals of course, One was German and the other was American and obviously different cultures being represented, but the outstanding things about both of them, one I mentioned is the simplicity of the gospel, not complicating the gospel, presenting it biblically as you read it in the new testament and they were both men of prayer, and they would go onto the platform soaked in prayer and waiting on God and that was so evident when you saw them first hand in the calling that God had given them.

For new evangelists today do you think that is the key? To actually really get soaked in prayer before you go out and become an evangelist?

Absolutely, there is no other way, Its not by our abilities, it is by the power of God and we need to make sure that we retain that rich anointing of the Holy Spirit and that comes about by prayer.

Do you think there will ever be another Reinhard Bonnke or was he for a time, and season?

He was for a time and a season but there will be others of course until Jesus comes, Billy Graham served in America and Europe as well as other countries in the world in his time, and Reinhard Bonnke was undoubtedly was an apostle for Africa and he served his time and of course Daniel Kolenda who has taken over has taken on that burden very largely for Africa and there are others who are perhaps not so well known because of the work they do, But in Asia, in various parts of the world and we thank God for each one of them and everyone for their season.

Now you have just said that Daniel Kolenda has taken over from Reinhard, what is your prayer for CFAN as it moves forward?

I believe that whenever the founder goes to heaven it is a great challenge to those that are left because obviously there was a rich anointing upon Reinhard Bonnke as an individual, But I have been able to see with my own eyes and witnessed the fact that Daniel Kolenda who has been his successor has a similar anointing but its still not Reinhard’s anointing, Every man needs to seek his own anointing and Daniel has a rich anointing and I am convinced that if anything the work is going to be even more powerful, Its already proving to be so, More powerful than it was with Reinhard. Reinhard served his time, Daniel is raised up by God and he is a General in the faith and we are in for exiting times until Jesus returns.

So even though Reinhard has gone, Daniel is still carrying the torch and the mantle for Christ for all nations?

Absolutely and as I said earlier it doesn’t rest in a man God has his men everywhere and where one is buried another is raised up.

Ok Tony thank you for sharing.

My pleasure, and I trust that out of this we will see many more evangelists raised up in our land.