The Kenyan Evangelist Behind Bonnke’s Biggest Crusades
BISHOP DR. STEPHEN MUTUA — THE KENYAN EVANGELIST BEHIND SOME OF REINHARD BONNKE’S GREATEST AFRICAN CRUSADES
When millions gathered across Africa to hear legendary German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, the man holding the microphone was famous around the world.
But behind many of those massive crusades was a Kenyan evangelist whose name was far less known to the crowds — Bishop Dr. Stephen Mutua.
Today, Mutua is the founder of Eagles Christian Church International, an evangelist, church planter, missions strategist and mentor who has ministered in more than 100 nations.
His journey into international evangelism took a major turn around 1986. While associated with World Vision International, Mutua became involved in coordinating Kenyan evangelists for a Christ for all Nations programme. What began as an assignment eventually became a calling that would consume more than two decades of his life.
He joined Christ for all Nations (CfaN), the ministry founded by Reinhard Bonnke, and rose to become an International Director.
For roughly 25 years, Mutua worked alongside Bonnke, helping organise enormous evangelistic campaigns and coordinating ministry across different nations. His work took him through countries including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Nigeria and many others. His own church biography says he served with CfaN for over 20 years and was responsible for numerous nations around the world.
These were not small church meetings.
Bonnke’s campaigns sometimes drew hundreds of thousands — even more than a million people. The historic Lagos crusade of 2000, for example, was reported to have drawn about 1.6 million people to a single meeting.
Behind gatherings of that magnitude were months of preparation: mobilising churches, dealing with governments and community leaders, finding suitable grounds, organising transport and security and bringing different denominations together.
Mutua was part of that machinery.
But evangelism in Africa also took him into dangerous territory.
He has spoken about ministry in strongly Muslim areas and situations where preaching the Gospel could carry serious consequences. He has told stories of praying for sick people in Muslim communities and seeing unexpected doors open for Christian ministry.
In one testimony, Mutua recalls praying for a man suffering from a large growth. According to his account, the man’s healing created an opportunity for him to preach. He later described another case involving the wife of a local official who was suffering from cancer. After she reportedly recovered following prayer, the official donated land, and a church was eventually established.
These remain Mutua’s own ministry testimonies of healing, rather than independently verified medical accounts, but they illustrate the kind of frontier evangelism that has shaped his preaching.
Before establishing his own ministry, Mutua also served as a church planter and senior pastor with Nairobi Pentecostal Church, now known as Christ Is The Answer Ministries — CITAM.
Then came another chapter.
In 2007, together with his wife Pastor Gladys Mutua, he founded Eagles Christian Church International, headquartered along Ngong Road in Karen, Nairobi.
The church grew into several branches, while Mutua continued his international missions work.
But perhaps one of the most interesting turns in his story came years later.
Around 2018, Mutua began speaking about a burden he felt to raise another generation of African evangelists.
Instead of Africa continually depending on missionaries coming from Europe and America, he believed Africa itself should become a major missionary force.
From that conviction came the African Network of Evangelists, through which village evangelists, young evangelists, church planters and emerging African preachers could be identified, trained, mentored and released into ministry.
By 2024 he was publicly listed as Director of the African Evangelist Network.
His message increasingly became:
Africa must move from being merely a mission field to becoming a mission force.
And his work has expanded beyond the African Evangelists Network.
Today, Bishop Stephen Mutua serves as Africa Director of the GO Movement and Chair of the GO Movement’s Global Taskforce on Evangelism, continuing to mobilise Christians for evangelism across Africa and internationally.
At home, his ministry has always been shared with his wife, Pastor Gladys W. Mutua, a preacher, teacher and counsellor. They have four grown children — two sons and two daughters — and grandchildren.
One statement captures much of Mutua’s philosophy concerning the next generation:
Young people are not merely the leaders of tomorrow — they are leaders today.
And perhaps that explains his life’s journey.
He spent decades helping Reinhard Bonnke preach to millions.
Then he built a church.
Then he began raising evangelists.
Now, rather than trying simply to become another famous African preacher, much of his work is centred on multiplication — producing thousands of evangelists who can go where one man can never go.
That may ultimately be Bishop Dr. Stephen Mutua’s greatest legacy:
The Kenyan who stood behind some of Africa’s greatest evangelistic crusades is now working to ensure that the next generation does not need another Stephen Mutua — because Africa will have thousands of them.
