Reinhard Bonnke says 845,875 people accepted Christ during his farewell crusade in Nigeria
Christ for All Nations (CfAN), the ministry led by evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, has reported that a total of 845,875 people accepted Jesus Christ during a crusade held in Lagos, Nigeria in November 2017.
The Great Gospel Crusade, which was Bonnke's final farewell crusade, had drawn over 1.7 million people over five days in Lagos, Nigeria, where the 78-year-old evangelist had ministered for over fifty years.
According to CfAN's website, the new converts are now being ushered into 8,000 participating churches for follow-up sessions.
"We utilize a sophisticated follow-up system, with hundreds of computers for data input and tens of thousands of cell phone calls each day welcoming the new converts into the kingdom of God, introducing them to the particular church that they will attend and to the pastor as well," CfAN Vice President Peter Vandenberg said, as reported by CBN News.
The ministry noted that churches across Nigeria are still feeling the effects of the crusade months later.
"Hundreds of participating pastors reported that on the first Sunday following the crusade, they were flooded with thousands of new church members," Vandenberg said.
When Bonnke last held a crusade in Nigeria in 2000, it was attended by six million people over five days, and 3.4 million people made decisions to follow Christ, according to the ministry.
Bonnke, who appeared on The 700 Club on Thursday to promote his book "Holy Spirit: Are We Flammable Or Fireproof?" said that the numbers continue to inspire him to keep preaching the Gospel to the whole world.
"That gave me faith for the rest of the world. If Jesus can save a million in a meeting, it will take less than one year to get America saved!" he exclaimed.
The recent crusade in Nigeria may have been Bonnke's final one in Africa, but the evangelist stated that he intends to keep preaching. Despite facing what he called "health challenges," he said that he believes God still has more for him to do.
Bonnke had founded CfAN in 1974, and since that time, 77 million people have come to follow Christ through the ministry.
He contended that those numbers are only possible through the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Bonnke has been succeeded by Daniel Kolenda, who was inaugurated and anointed in Nigeria on Nov. 13, 2017.
Kolenda, who reportedly started holding massive open-air evangelistic campaigns at age 16, has been under Bonnke's guidance for over a decade.
The ministry has described Bonnke's successor as a gifted, fifth-generation preacher whose ministry is marked by powerful evangelistic anointing and incredible miracles after the model of Jesus' preaching, teaching and healing.
CfAN's website noted that Kolenda's "greatest education has come from the years of ministry side-by-side with his mentor and spiritual father Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke."