Biography of Rodney Howard-Browne
Rodney Howard-Browne Biography
Rodney Howard-Browne Biography – Pastor and evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne is a charismatic Christian. He is the leader of Revival Ministries International and the pastor of The River at Tampa Bay, a church he and his spouse started in 1996. Born in South Africa, he moved to Tampa, Florida, in the middle of the 1990s. During his revival sessions, attendees are renowned for erupting into “holy laughter.”
Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Rodney Howard-Browne spent his childhood in the Eastern Cape and Transkei. Adonica, his spouse, was reared in Johannesburg after being born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. At the age of five, Rodney devoted his heart to the Lord, and at the age of seventeen, Adonica did the same. Following their marriage in 1981, they entered the traveling ministry full-time. They spent the following six years preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout Southern Africa, including Namibia and Zimbabwe. They planted a church in the northeastern Cape in 1983 and served as its pastor for two years. Following that, Rodney spent an additional two years as a teacher in a prestigious Bible school.
They gave birth to three children during this period: Kirsten in 1982, Kelly May in 1984, and Kenneth in 1987. Even before they were married, Rodney and Adonica were aware of their shared calling to preach the gospel throughout the world, with a special emphasis on the United States of America. The way opened for them to travel to America in 1987. Rodney made two trips to the United States that year, preaching at several churches. In December 1987, the entire family made a trip to the United States to carry out God’s plan, purpose, and call and enter a new stage of their ministry. Their plane tickets were miraculously paid for by the Lord, and they arrived in America with just $300, four luggage, and their three infants, who were five, three, and seven months old at the time.
Along with a divine commission, Rodney and Adonica arrived in America driven by a burning desire to see lives transformed and souls rescued. He advised them to, “Stir up the churches and tell them to get ready for the coming revival.” The Church needs to be roused and given a fire within in order to see lives rescued and the lost brought into God’s kingdom and family, and this will result in a vast harvest of souls. In addition, the Lord promised to use them just as He had used Joseph in Egypt.
He informed them that staying in America would ultimately benefit their country more than their stay in South Africa would have. Since then, hundreds of people have attended some amazing meetings in different South African towns, some of which lasted up to four weeks. At their South African camp meeting, they registered almost 22,000 individuals in a single week of revival in Johannesburg. But they believe that the Good News campaigns in South Africa have fulfilled this divine word!
They prayed constantly during their fifteen-month journey across America, starting in January 1988, asking God to pour forth His spirit on His people and grant them a life-changing, miraculous experience with the Holy Spirit. A revival that lasted till today started in April 1989, the sixteenth month, when the glory of God was revealed during a Tuesday morning service in an upstate New York church. The supernatural power of the Holy Spirit profoundly touched and transformed hundreds of people that week, and ever since then, hundreds of thousands of people have encountered the transformative power of God all over the world.
People are delivered, set free, healed, and saved when they come into contact with God’s presence. Relationships are repaired, broken hearts are patched, wounded emotions are made whole, and people are filled with love, joy, and peace when they let the Spirit of God operate in them. Only the Spirit of the Lord can accomplish these things, but before He can be made evident among us, we must first embrace Him!
Rodney and Adonica believe that God has called them to teach the body of Christ, by example, how to make the church a welcoming place for the presence of God and allow Him to work His will in and among His children. They believe this can be accomplished through the worship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus declared that He would bring all people to Himself if He is exalted. It is our responsibility to exalt Him and to not shrink from the Word or the Spirit of God. In addition to teaching on how to experience revival in your own life, Rodney and Adonica have witnessed the enduring power of God transform people’s hearts across six continents. Ultimately, they all react to the Holy Spirit in the same way, regardless of their language, customs, or culture.
Magnificent revivals that last anywhere from one to four weeks have been witnessed by Rodney and Adonica to occur in North, South, and Central America, Africa (including South Africa), the United Kingdom, Europe, Scandinavia, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Israel. They conducted thirteen weeks of revival in Lakeland, Florida, in a single year. Because their commission is to stir up the churches and the pastors, shake them out of their complacency, fire them up to press in deeper with the Holy Spirit, and then leave them to do what God has called them to do in their city, Rodney and Adonica felt that God did not want them to run revivals longer than four consecutive weeks in churches.
Under the auspices of Revival Ministries International, Rodney and Adonica travel around 46 weeks a year to conduct weekly meetings in places all across North America and the globe. In addition, they serve as pastors of The River at Tampa Bay, a church they started on December 1, 1996, and currently have 3000 members. The Lord granted them a stunning two-year-old building on the main highway in the summer of 2001, which is now worth twice as much as they paid for it! They founded the River Bible Institute in 1997, teaching students the Word and the Spirit and instilling in them a spirit of revival and evangelism. They also founded the River School of Government and the River School of Worship. They also started an online Bible school that students from all around the world could attend as long as they had access to the Internet.
Rodney and Adonica have never wavered from their commitment to souls—the most significant task of their lives and ministry. God gave Rodney a vision in 1998 of a massive soul-winning campaign in New York City, so in the summer of 1999, they hired Madison Square Garden for six weeks of intense soul-winning under the auspices of Good News New York. For eight weeks, common people from every continent who had experienced revival served as street evangelists in New York, reminding them that God had a wonderful plan for their lives and pointing them toward Jesus. A total of 48,459 individuals made recorded decisions to make Jesus the Lord of their lives. During the summer of 2000, Good News Shreveport/Bossier was held in the state of Louisiana. It consisted of six weeks in the Hirsch Coliseum and eight weeks of door-to-door evangelism on the streets. This time, 59,247 souls were spared.
It was Soweto, South Africa’s turn, in November 2004; in a span of just ten nights, Good News Soweto recorded 177,600 decisions for Christ. They conducted their second large-scale campaign, Good News Umlazi, in May 2005 in the South African city of Durban. Throughout ten nights, they attracted an attendance of over 539,000 people, and they saved over 286,750 souls in the stadium and many more by radio. They made a third trip back to South Africa in October of 2005 to conduct a mass campaign. At Mamelodi, close to Pretoria, 113,000 priceless individuals surrendered their lives to the Lord in the course of just five nights. During their second large-scale campaign in 2006, called Good News Mdantsane, which took place at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium NU 2 from June 7–11, 70,489 priceless individuals accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
Every evening, they conducted prayer sessions for the people to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and speak in other tongues, spoke a sermon aimed at winning souls, and held an altar call for salvation. Then, when the individuals put their hands on the afflicted area of their bodies, they prayed for everyone who needed healing. Wonderful healing occurred every night!
Kelly, the second child of Rodney and Adonica, was born with cystic fibrosis, an irreversible lung condition. After being on oxygen for fourteen months, this evil sickness gradually damaged her lungs, and early on Christmas morning 2002, at the age of eighteen, she ran out of lung capacity and passed away. They had clung to her for as long as they could; she had come dangerously close to death twice, at the ages of three and eleven months, and for all this time, God had saved her life; Now, however, they felt her slipping away from them. Kelly’s life had always inspired them, so when the devil assaulted her body, they didn’t back down—instead, they pushed back! They put more effort into their battles, accomplished more, gave more, extended their faith to witness more of God’s might in action, preached more, prayed more, and believed in the possibility of even bigger miracles! Kelly was the source of their conflict!
The only thing they could think of to do as her body lay dying and before the devil could take her life was to offer their precious daughter, the greatest gift they would ever be able to give in a lifetime, as an offering to the Lord on the day that the entire world celebrated His birthday. They pledged a promise after placing her in the arms of her Lord and Savior. They first resolved to hold the devil accountable for the harm he had caused to their family. Second, they committed to doing everything within their ability to bring 100 million people to Jesus and to invest $1 billion in global missions and soul-winning with the Lord’s assistance!
Drs. Rodney and Adonica have used “Good News” campaigns, R.M.I. Revivals, and the Great Awakening Tours (G.A.T.) to conduct soul-winning activities throughout America and other nations. They have a heart for souls and a desire to reinvigorate and mobilize the body of Christ. Tens of thousands of believers have been revitalized and inspired to spread the good news of Jesus Christ as a result, and millions of people have come to know Him. Through this ministry, more than 18 million people have chosen to follow Jesus Christ worldwide thus far.
Howard-Browne tweeted shortly after the shootings at the Christchurch mosque in March 2019 that he believed it to be a “false flag” operation: “After everything is said and done, there is no doubt that the terrible events that occurred in New Zealand are a false flag that conservatives will be held responsible for! It’s wrong on every level that somebody would go into a building and kill people—only a complete nutjob crazy, insane, demonic freak!”
As part of a 300-city tour, Howard-Browne preached at the Canadian Arctic territory of Nunavut in August 2019. Over one hundred people, the majority of whom were Inuit, listened to him preach for more than an hour in a church in Iqaluit. A video of Howard-Browne declaring that “God loves a generous giver” was included in the appeal for donations. Nunatsiaq News criticized the event, pointing out that poverty is pervasive in the city and that nearly half of Nunavut’s population is dependent on social assistance amid persistent crises related to housing and food security. Additionally, the news source reported that he “harangued” and “lashed out” at audience members who attempted to leave before the sermon’s conclusion. Following the event, David Parsons, the Anglican bishop for the Arctic, called Howard-Browne an extremist.
