Leo Janz
Leo Erich Janz (born June 12, 1919 in Saskatchewan , Canada , † June 8, 2006 in Abbotsford , Canada) was a Canadian evangelist and singer .
Life
Leo Janz came from a Russian Mennonite family who emigrated from the Netherlands to Russia in 1786 for reasons of faith and from there to Canada in 1903/04 . His grandfather was the founder and pastor of the Mennonite Brethren Church in Main Center, Saskatchewan, and his father was a farmer. Leo Janz had seven brothers and three sisters. Low German was spoken in the family .
Janz completed a three-year course at the Herbert Bible School in Herbert (Saskatchewan) and during this time went on trips with other Bible students as an evangelist and singer. After completing the course, he took over the Sunday school class in his ward and held weekly meetings in the school building. In order to broaden his theological horizons, he then studied for two years at the Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills ( Alberta ). During this time he married Lydia Doell, a friend of his youngest sister. The young couple settled in a small village near Swift Current (Saskatchewan) and took over the leadership of a mission church of the Western Children's Mission .
On the occasion of a summer camp for children in 1946, Leo Janz appeared for the first time as a vocal quartet with his brothers Hildor and Adolph and Adolph's brother-in-law Cornie Enns . The following year, he took another advanced theology course at the Briercrest Bible Institute in Caronport, Saskatchewan, and the quartet sang every week on the institute's radio show, The Young People's Hour. The four were then called to serve in evangelism and travel ministry by the Prairie Bible Institute . They produced a fifteen-minute live daily radio show called "Hymns That Live" and a weekly children's program that was broadcast on several Canadian networks and was very popular with listeners.
In 1951, at the invitation of Jugend für Christus , the Janz Quartet undertook a three-month evangelistic trip through Germany , which also met with a great response. Upon their return, Leo Janz decided to concentrate more on preaching, and for a while he worked with Adolph Janz and Cornie Enns as a teacher at the Prairie Bible Institute , while Hildor Janz completed a vocal training in Los Angeles .
The positive experiences in Germany encouraged Leo Janz in 1954 to move permanently to Europe together with Hildor, the pianist Harding Braaten and their wives. They settled in Basel and initially worked primarily in the congregations of the St. Chrischona pilgrim mission . Their first public evangelism took place on the occasion of the Basel sample fair and lasted a whole month. A series of events followed in Essen's Grugahalle , which was attended by up to 9500 people per evening. In the years and decades that followed, the Janz team held numerous other major evangelistic events, recorded records and produced (until 1980) programs for Radio Luxemburg . From 1965 on, several evangelistic trips were made to South America ( Brazil , Paraguay , Argentina ).
In 1989 Leo Janz returned to Canada for reasons of age, where he spent his final years in a nursing home. He died four days before his 87th birthday after a long illness.
Leo Janz is the father of Paul Janz and Ken Janz , both co-founders of the Christian rock band Deliverance .
literature
- Leo Janz: The Janz Team Story . R. Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal 1974.
- Hansjörg Biener: "Leo Janz died". In: Medien aktuell: Kirche im Rundfunk 135-136 (2006), p. 12f.
Web links
- Literature by and about Leo Janz in the catalog of the German National Library
- Leo Janz Memorial
- Report on the commemoration for Leo Janz
- Leo Janz in the database of Find a Grave (English)
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Janz, Leo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Janz, Leo Erich (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Canadian evangelist and singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Saskatchewan , Canada |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 8, 2006 |
| Place of death | Abbotsford , Canada |