Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke is known for his Great Gospel Crusades throughout the continent of Africa.
Reinhard, a pastor's son, heard the call to the African mission field when he was still a boy. When he was 19 he enrolled at a Bible college in Wales and, on completing his studies, spent seven years as an ordained pastor in a Pentecostal church in northern Germany.
Reinhard's deepest longing was to work on the mission field. In 1967 he, his wife Anni and their one-year-old son Kai-Uwe set off for the mountain kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa. It was many years, however, before his missionary activities took on greater dimensions and he purchased a tent which could shelter 800 people from the wind and rain. As more and more people came to the evangelistic meetings, that tent was soon not large enough and was replaced by the yellow tent with space for 10,000 people. In turn, that tent became too small and in 1984 the largest tent in the world (according to the entry in the Guinness Book of Records) was built with seats for 34,000 people.
The international mission organization Christ for all Nations was founded in 1974, by which time attendance was even exceeding the capacity of the largest tent and the meetings were being held in the open air. The largest single meeting to date during the campaign in Lagos (Nigeria) in November 2000 was attended by some 1.6 million people.
Over the past 22 years some 120 million people have attended the vast evangelistic meetings. Since the year 2000 more than 75 million people made decisions for Jesus and documented what they had done by completing decision cards. These cards are used in the follow-up work and help to ensure that people are integrated quickly and smoothly into local church fellowships.
Reinhard Bonnke is also known for his Fire Conferences in many different countries of the world. The aim of these conferences, which have a major impact on the life of the church, is to train pastors, evangelists and spiritual leaders in evangelism so that this generation can be reached with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. The theological basis for the clear, Bible-based proclamation of the message of salvation through Jesus is reinforced by Reinhard Bonnke's books and booklets, 190 million copies of which have been printed in 143 languages. Millions of them have been given free of charge to new converts as well as to Bible college students to help them in their evangelistic studies.
The Reinhard Bonnke School of Fire study program and the professionally produced eight-part Full Flame Film Series also serve the same purpose to inspire disciples of Jesus to evangelistic ministry and to make them as effective as possible.
As a registered charity, Christ for all Nations has its headquarters in Orlando, Florida in the USA. It also has offices in Africa, the USA, Germany, Canada, England, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.