I want to tell you the story of three dreams: two of them actual, literal dreams in the night. Both of them came to Reinhard Bonnke in two very different seasons of life; the first when he was very young, just starting out in ministry, and the other near the end of his ministry. The first dream is well known, the other is not. But both, I believe, are highly prophetic. These two dreams are like golden bookends that encapsulate the life and legacy of one of God’s greatest generals. But moreover, and this is the purpose of this writing, they lead us to a third dream that I want to share with you in a moment — my dream.
First dream
“Africa Shall Be saved”
The year was 1972. Reinhard Bonnke was a thirty-two-year-old missionary in Lesotho, a small, mountainous nation, landlocked by South Africa. Reinhard’s ministry had been very difficult up to this point and there was not much fruit. He said that on one occasion he traveled a whole day to reach a village, and when he arrived, only five people attended his meeting and no one got saved. His heart was troubled. He knew there must be more than this. He would cry out, “Oh Lord, this cannot be it. This cannot be the impact of the glorious gospel.” It was a very difficult season in his life and ministry. But then, one night he had a dream that changed everything. He saw a gigantic map of the African continent. And as he watched, it became washed in the precious blood of Jesus — from south to north and from west to east. Then he heard a mighty voice cry, “From Cape Town to Cairo, all Africa shall be saved!” and he woke up. He was shaken. What a wonderful dream! But then as his logical German brain caught up to him, he thought to himself, “My ministry has no impact in this tiny little nation. Now I hear all of Africa will be saved? Something is wrong. I must have eaten some bad bananas.” But Reinhard had that same dream the next night and the next and the one after. And after night number four, he said to his wife, “Anni, I think God is trying to tell me something.”
In response to that dream, Christ for all Nations was born. Reinhard Bonnke, together with his wife Anni and their small children, embarked on an adventure that would see millions of people come to Christ and multitudes more empowered and equipped to preach the gospel. “Africa Shall be Saved” became a battle cry for Reinhard Bonnke and a phrase that came to be synonymous with his life and the ministry of Christ for all Nations.
During Reinhard’s life, his ministry saw more than 75 million people come to Christ in a thirty-year window between 1987 – 2017; and by the time he died a couple years later, that number had reached 79 million — one million salvations, on average, for every year of his life! What an amazing legacy!
But there are many more than 79 million souls in Africa, not to mention the fact that many African nations, especially in the north, were not open to Reinhard Bonnke. In fact, on one scouting trip in North Africa, he was arrested, put in jail, and then deported. He also had been called to China (a little-known fact) and had a worldwide harvest in his heart, which is why he named his ministry, “Christ for All Nations.” As fruitful as Bonnke’s ministry was, surely there is a greater fulfillment yet to come. And that brings us to the second dream.
Second dream
A Forerunner
In 2012 Reinhard Bonnke and I were both preaching at the BFP Annual Convention in Germany. In the night he had a dream that he shared with me the next morning at breakfast and then repeated that evening at the conference. He said that his dream was so real, he wasn’t sure if he was asleep or awake. In fact, he didn’t know if it was a dream or a vision. He said he was projected into the future where he overheard two personalities talking. They were discussing amazing things going on in the world at that time. But there was one thing of particular interest. One of the voices asked, “What ever happened to Reinhard Bonnke?” The reply was this, “Oh, Reinhard Bonnke was just the forerunner of a whole generation of Holy Spirit evangelists.” Then he woke up.
Reinhard lived with an awareness that he needed to impart something to the next generation for the sake of this great coming harvest. That’s why he wrote books, produced media, held Fire Conferences and preached relentlessly. During the last few years of his life, one of his favorite themes was, “Passing the torch to the next generation.” He preached about it often as he visited many countries for the last time. And this is where we come to my dream.
Third dream
My Dream
In 2017, the Lord began to speak to me about the upcoming decade as a “Decade of Double Harvest.” I had no idea at the time that Reinhard Bonnke would pass away less than a month before the beginning of the decade. What I felt in my heart is that over the next ten years or so, God would double the number of souls saved to over 150 million. In other words, He would do in the next ten years what had taken the previous 30 combined! It would be a supernatural acceleration of the harvest in this critical hour of history. But that double harvest is not the dream. That acceleration will simply be the catalyst for an exponentially greater harvest, perhaps the greatest evangelistic movement the world has ever known. It will propel “a whole new generation of Holy Spirit evangelists” into the fields before Jesus returns!
Now you might ask, how is this possible? Do you plan to have larger campaigns? Or more campaigns? Well, while we’re on the subject, the answer to that is actually, Yes! I do believe we are going to see the largest campaigns we have ever seen. The Lord has given us some very specific direction on that, and we are already seeing a stirring on the ground in Africa as never before. Also, we are dramatically increasing the number of campaigns in Africa. The most we have ever conducted in a year is 8 campaigns. In 2020, the first year of the Double Harvest Strategy, we have increased to 13 campaigns! The next year we will increase to 23 campaigns and the following year we will work to nearly double it again with 43 campaigns — in one year! These are CfaN Gospel Campaigns in Africa where I will personally preach.
As exciting as all of this is, the Lord showed me that the exponential increase would come, not simply through addition (CfaN conducting more campaigns and bigger campaigns), but through multiplication. The two words that the Lord gave me, the words that are ringing in my heart, the keys to seeing this dream of a world-wide harvest become reality are these: MULTIPLY and COLLABORATE!
Multiply
We are going to multiply by training, equipping, and launching thousands of evangelists. In fact, we’ve already been doing this on a small scale for the last couple years. Ever since the Lord spoke to me in 2017, our ministry has reconfigured everything to accommodate this word. We have been experimenting, testing, improving, and perfecting the system that will become the incubation chamber for this multiplication. We have not talked publicly about our developments very much because I wanted to test them first and make sure they work. What you may not realize is that we have already been seeing remarkable results and have a tried and verified “proof of concept.” Now, for the first time we are presenting the strategy of the Decade of Double Harvest (and beyond). This is the dream burning in my heart and I believe, once you see it, it will burn in your heart as well.
Christ for all Nations
Evangelism Bootcamp
Though we have trained thousands of students through our School of Evangelism (SOE), In January of 2020, Christ for all Nations launched its very first Evangelism Bootcamp in Orlando, Florida. This is a three-month, highly intense and specific training for campaign evangelism. It is much more than a school. As its name implies, it combines the intensity of a military bootcamp with the focused instruction of a trade school. In Bootcamp, students are challenged physically, mentally, spiritually, and academically.
We emphasize physical fitness, spiritual formation, and character development as well as focusing on the theological foundations of evangelism. Students are trained to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, and bring multitudes into the experience of the Holy Spirit on campaigns platforms in the Third World. They learn how to preach cross-culturally, give effective altar calls, work with interpreters, and everything else needed to minister powerfully as evangelists.
In addition, we teach students all the practical skills they cannot learn anywhere else:
- Campaign organizing
- Fund raising/campaign finances
- Working with local pastors
- Follow up with new converts
- The ins and outs of international travel
- How to run an evangelistic ministry
- Publicity/Advertising
- Direct Mail
- Media: Television/Social Media/Web
- Printing/Publishing
- And much more…
The six-month training culminates with a three week “Initiation” on the field in Africa, where students will conduct hundreds of campaigns/campaigns and lead hundreds of thousands of people to Christ!
After graduation, these students are invited to work alongside the Christ for all Nations team worldwide to multiply the harvest over the next decade. At the moment, we offer them several levels of participation:
Pre-Campaign Mobilization
For six to seven weeks leading up to our Mass Gospel Campaigns, we send these co-evangelists into the region. They are able to go into smaller villages where our big campaigns cannot. They go to markets, schools, hospitals, and prisons, holding campaigns on street corners and in football stadiums. They go to local churches and minister one-on-one everywhere they go.
Just to give you an example of how this works, in 2019 we went to Nakuru, Kenya. More than a third of the population of the entire city showed up at our last night of meetings there. It was awesome! But even before I arrived, for seven weeks leading up to the campaign, we had a team of four evangelists on the ground preaching the gospel. Between the four of them, they conducted up to 32 outreaches per day! Over those seven weeks prior to the campaign they ministered in 611 outreaches and led more than 200,000 people to Christ! I believe the days are coming when more people will be saved before the campaigns than during them. Not because the campaigns are small, but because there is such a movement of evangelism swirling around the campaigns that they actually become the catalyst for something even greater than themselves. Nakuru was just one of many such pre-campaign mobilization initiatives in several cities and countries that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of salvations — and that was just the beta test!
How have we been able to get such amazing results in the pre-campaign mobilization?
We have three strategies:
1. Gospel Trucks
In Africa, our talented team of world-class technicians has built a fleet of custom-made, mobile campaign units, affectionately known as “gospel trucks.” These trucks are designed for the rugged African terrain and are able to access the most difficult areas.
It’s important to understand that these are not just hit-and-run evangelistic outreaches. Our gospel trucks are connected with the main campaign's organizing team so that each village outreach has participating churches (where new converts can be connected), along with ushers and counselors. They preach with interpreters, partnering with local pastors and sometimes even have local worship teams cooperating. These are literally smaller campaigns that are held all over the place.
2. School Outreaches
The median age in Africa is under 20 years old. This fact, combined with the reality that most people who make a decision to follow Christ do so in their youth, makes schools a prime target for evangelism. Many are under the impression that schools are off-limits to the gospel, but CfaN’s impeccable reputation of integrity over 40 years of ministry in Africa has given our teams access to many thousands of schools.
In Nakuru, Kenya – the city I mentioned earlier, where we saw over 200,000 salvations in seven weeks – our team ministered in hundreds of schools. But here’s the amazing part – there are over 33,000 schools in Kenya alone – and they are all open to us. But it’s not just Kenya that is open. Schools in many nations across Africa are open to us. We just haven’t had the time or manpower to reach them. Imagine if we could take the gospel to every one of those schools. It would result in many millions of salvations per year! But here’s the crazy part – even if we had the personnel to reach all of the schools in Africa, every four years we would have to start over, because they would be filled with a whole new group of students! This part of the vision is infinitely scalable — all we lack is workers. It’s exactly what Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (Matt. 9:37).
3. One-On-One
Everywhere these evangelists go, they are trained to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Whether they are standing on a platform before thousands or talking to the waitress at a restaurant, the staff at their hotel, flight attendants at the airport, or people they meet on the street — everywhere they go, they are bringing the power of the gospel into people’s lives. This is both organic and organized. In addition to the normal daily encounters they have on the way, we also organize outreaches in public places where they witness one-on-one to people shopping in the markets or congregating in busy parts of town.
Together, these three strategies (the Gospel Trucks, School Outreaches, and One-On-One Evangelism) guarantee that even before the first day of one of our Mass Gospel Campaigns, the region has been shaken by the gospel for several weeks leading up to it.
This “Pre-Campaign Mobilization Initiative” is just one of several strategies connected to the Decade of Double Harvest. I will briefly mention three others that represent the many different ways our co-evangelists will multiply the harvest:
Operation Decapolis
Decapolis means “ten cities.” Working together with the CfaN co-evangelists, we conduct 10 campaigns in ten cities over a two-week period. The campaigns in each city last five-to-six days. Our CfaN organizers, technicians, and support staff prepare these campaigns with the co-evangelists carrying the majority of the ministry. I travel to each city, preaching one night in each campaign. This ensures that we are able to harness all of the tools CfaN has for conducting effective gospel campaigns, while increasing the reach and scope of our work ten-fold without adding additional time or expense. It is true multiplication!
Stand-Alone Outreaches
I believe that the harvest is so ripe, not only in Africa, but around the world, that our Village Campaigns, Gospel Trucks, and School Outreaches will not be limited to “Pre-Campaign Mobilization.” In other words, all of the above initiatives can be carried out independent of our Mass Gospel Campaigns. We will send teams at all times of the year and to many different regions — including other parts of the world. I envision a day these initiatives will be ongoing every day all over the world.
Stand-Alone Campaigns
We have already been helping evangelism graduates to conduct their own campaigns in many different parts of the world. We do this by offering them support, both in logistics and resources and even financially. Through these campaigns we have seen millions of people come to Christ in many places in the world without any known connection to the CfaN name. Our primary goal is not to get credit for the harvest, but to help push it forward any way possible.
In addition to all of this, one inevitable effect will be that many of these evangelists will launch out on their own. We are training and equipping them to do campaign ministry, not just in theory, but by working with CfaN in the field. I cannot imagine a more effective on-the-job-training opportunity. The results of this ongoing harvest will be literally incalculable.
A Billion-Soul Harvest
For a number of years, I have been hearing prophetic words about a “billion-soul harvest” that is coming. There was a time when I dismissed these prophecies as dramatic, hyper-faith rhetoric — but not anymore! I really believe it is possible and I’m going to show you just how possible it is through multiplication. For those of you that are number people (like me), consider this. If I had 2,000 evangelists, each of who was committed to five outreaches per year and in each outreach they led just 10,000 people to Christ (these are very conservative numbers by the way, as we have already proven many times), that would equal 100,000,000 (one hundred million) people saved per year! Multiply that over 10 years and you have a billion souls.
This is why, in addition to the 40-plus campaigns Christ for all Nations will be conducting each year in Africa, my goal is to raise up, train and equip 2,000 campaign evangelists over the next decade. This is what I mean when I say that the “Decade of Double Harvest” is only the beginning — a catalyst for the greatest movement of world evangelism in history. And this is what I believe Reinhard dreamt about when he heard that voice saying, “Reinhard Bonnke was just the forerunner of a whole new generation of Holy Spirit evangelists.” This is how I believe the fulfillment of his vision of a blood washed Africa from Cape Town to Cairo and beyond, will be fulfilled.
Collaborate
The other word the Lord gave me was “collaborate.” In the past, evangelists were seen as lone rangers who were unwilling (or perhaps unable) to work together. This is changing in our day and indeed it must change if we are to see this great end-time harvest reaped. I have had experiences in Africa when we needed to move campaign dates or venues because other evangelists were in the same place at the same time. We were stepping on each other because of a lack of communication. But the world is a huge place, and there is no reason we should be tripping over each other in some places while other places are completely neglected. Imagine if, rather than interfering with one another, we actually began to work together, synergizing our efforts and resources for an even greater impact!
Also, in my experience, evangelists are often very lonely. One evangelist called me recently to tell me about the campaign he had just returned from. After many wonderful testimonies of all that God had done, there was a silence. Then he said, “You know sometimes I just feel so lonely. I don’t even know who to tell about what God is doing. I just needed someone to talk to.” Evangelists need community just like everyone else. They need a community to belong to, and colleagues to encourage them and hold them accountable.
This is where “collaboration” comes into play. As one of the most influential evangelistic ministries in the world, Christ for all Nations is committed to using that influence to help other ministries and bring evangelists together in Kingdom collaborations for the sake of the harvest. Here are three examples of this:
1. Global Evangelist Alliance (GEA)
In 2017, under the umbrella of “Empowered21,” CfaN was commissioned by apostolic leaders around the world to establish the Global Evangelist Alliance. In May of 2018 we brought together some of the most influential evangelists in the world to form an Executive Council under which there is representation from every region. We are working toward having members in every city in the world, working together and collaborating to reap the harvest.
Through the Global Evangelist Alliance, ordinary men and women with a heart for the lost have access to other evangelists in the alliance all over the world. Someone with a burden for Myanmar or Peru will be able to connect with other GEA members there, or anywhere else in the world.
Every year GEA leadership and members meet together for a time of inspiration, training, fellowship, and planning. Imagine evangelists strategizing together to shake entire nations with the gospel. By bringing together men and woman with the same burden and passion we are facilitating collaborations that will result in a massive harvest.
2. The Send
In February of 2018, just three days after the death of Billy Graham, a small group of men met at the Christ for all Nations headquarters in Orlando to talk about collaborating together for the sake of sparking a worldwide missions’ movement. Out of that meeting, The Send was born. Together with Brian Brennt (Circuit Riders), Andy Byrd (YWAM), Lou Engle, Teo Hayashi (Dunamis Movement, Brazil) Todd White (Lifestyle Christianity) and Michael Koulianos (Jesus Image), I and Christ for all Nations comprise one of the seven collaborators that lead The Send.
Our first gathering was in Orlando in February 2019. Nearly 60,000 people, mostly youth, gathered in Camping World Stadium for twelve hours of prayer, the preaching of the gospel and commissioning to the mission field! As a result, more than 2,500 people received Christ!
The second gathering took place in February of 2020 in Brazil. We first rented the largest stadium in Sao Paulo (Morumbi, which seats 70,000 people). When registration opened, it sold out in six hours, beating the stadium’s previous record for sell-out time! We decided to rent the second largest stadium in the same city. It sold out in three days. We took the leap of faith to rent a third stadium in Brasilia, the capital. On February 8th I preached to 140,000 people across three stadiums in two cities within eight hours. While driving to the second stadium, the Lord gave me the words of Amos 9:13
“’Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.’”
In Brazil, we saw 7,847 people give their lives to Christ.
The Send has only begun. We are heading to many other nations and cities in the days to come believing God to send workers into the harvest. This is one more way we are working to obey the word to “collaborate.”
3. CfaN Evangelism Alliance
Christ for all Nations has held dozens of Schools of Evangelism in many different nations of the world. Now with the Bootcamp and other training initiatives, the community of evangelists that belong to the CfaN family has grown to thousands. We offer these graduates the opportunity to remain connected to CfaN for ongoing training, resourcing, and collaboration. This happens through the CfaN Evangelism Alliance.
What All This Means to Me Personally
I became the successor of Reinhard Bonnke when I was just 28 years old. It’s an understatement to say I felt unqualified and out of my depth. At times I wondered why God chose me. I didn’t ask for this assignment and never even saw it coming. Never once have I believed that God put me in this position for my own personal benefit. I didn’t inherit this ministry because of any family relation. I have never felt entitled to it. Nor do I believe my calling is just to maintain Reinhard Bonnke’s ministry for another fifty years. I can remember on more than one occasion, Reinhard, while preaching a sermon, stopping mid-sentence, turning toward me sitting on the front row, pointing his finger at me and saying in a commanding tone, “Daniel, you are not to become the custodian of my legacy. Preach the gospel!” What he was saying, and what he did say many times, is that he had no desire just to perpetuate his ministry for the sake of his legacy. That is not why we are here. No! In this next season, God will use this incredible platform Reinhard and Anni Bonnke and many others spent a lifetime building, to launch that new generation of Holy Spirit evangelists.
The Invitation and Need
There are very few things in life that are truly worthwhile. As John reminds us, “…the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17). What is the will of God? Peter makes it clear that God is, “…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). There is nothing dearer to the heart of God than souls. Daniel said, “…Those who turn many to righteousness, [will shine] like the stars forever and ever” (Daniel 12:3). If you’ve been looking for something to invest in that pays eternal dividends – look no further. I cannot imagine a better investment in this world!
Leonard Ravenhill said, “The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity.” I believe the harvest that lies before us is not only the opportunity of a lifetime, but the opportunity of the ages. I want to invite you to stand with us and seize this moment for Calvary’s sake! I am asking you to make a commitment that for the next decade, you will stand with Christ for all Nations to see this massive harvest come in. Would you stand with us?
We need your support
Three ways to help
Pray
We need your prayers. We are in a very real battle and there is resistance. We are pressing forward with all the grace God has given us, but we need your prayers for the CfaN team and our families, spread out across the world, with offices in twelve countries and six continents.
Serve
Some of you may be called to join this army of evangelists being sent out into the harvest fields. Maybe you know someone who is called into mass campaign evangelism. I know no better way to launch them than through the CfaN training and Bootcamp. You can find out more about training here:
Give
Our urgent need at the moment is for a training facility. Presently, we are utilizing our offices in Orlando, but because of space constraints we have only been able to accept 50 students (out of hundreds of applicants). We need to take the limits off quickly if we are going to be able to fulfill the vision.
There are also a number of other, highly strategic ways you can give toward the harvest. From sponsoring students in need to the purchase of “Gospel Trucks”, to the financing of campaigns — we need your help.
Years ago, we used to sing a song by Robert Critchley that said:
We are dreamers of impossible dreams
Walking by faith in what is yet unseen
Number us Lord with those who dare to believe that we can live in Your impossible dream
Little did I know back then, how important it would be to “see” what is yet unseen and take hold of these God-dreams by faith, time and time again. I believe we can see the impossible become possible in our day. We can live this impossible dream for the glory of God and the sake of souls.
Thank you for standing with us — the best is yet to come!
Evangelist Daniel Kolenda
President, Christ for all Nations
