Gary Janzen is a lifelong minister, missionary, and servant leader whose career spans more than five decades of dedicated service to the Church and to communities around the world. Gary married his best friend Karen in 1977 and together have 4 children and 9 grandchildren. Rooted in faith and shaped by rigorous preparation, Gary's journey has taken him from the plains of Manitoba to the mountains of Rwanda, and to nearly every continent in between.

Gary was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he completed his secondary education at Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute in 1974. Sensing a call to ministry from an early age, he went on to earn a two-year Bible College Diploma from Columbia Bible Institute in Abbotsford, British Columbia, in 1977. Recognizing the importance of practical leadership skills alongside theological training, he also completed a two-year Business Administration Diploma from Red River Community College in 1979, a combination of spiritual depth and administrative competence that would define his approach to ministry for decades to come.

While pursuing his education, Gary also began his professional life in the business world, managing an Olympic Sports Sporting Goods store from 1980 to 1985. This experience instilled in him a disciplined work ethic, an ability to lead teams, and a gift for connecting with people from all walks of life, qualities that would prove invaluable in his pastoral and missionary endeavors.

In 1985, Gary answered a clear call to full-time ministry when he became Youth Pastor at Glad Tidings Fellowship in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Over the next fifteen years, he poured himself into the lives of young people, building vibrant programming, fostering deep discipleship, and igniting a passion for global mission in a new generation. A hallmark of his tenure was his partnership with Youth With A Mission (YWAM), through which he organized and led annual summer mission trips to Mexico from 1988 to 1999 — introducing hundreds of young people to the transformative experience of cross-cultural service. He also served as the chairman of the school board for 3 years at the private school attached to the church, Highroad Academy. Rounding out his time in Chilliwack, he was an elder at the Church and head coach of the high-school basketball team that he initiated in 1985, for many years as well.

In 2001, Gary joined the pastoral staff at Southgate Church in Langley, British Columbia, where he would serve for a decade in a remarkable variety of roles. He served as director of the church's internship program, shaping the next generation of ministry leaders. He led Men's Ministry, creating spaces for spiritual growth, accountability, and community among men. And as Missions Pastor, he was part of an ambitious portfolio of church-planting and outreach initiatives spanning Jamaica, Japan, Taiwan, Spruce Grove (Alberta), the Philippines, and Peru, reflecting his conviction that the local church exists not only for its own community, but for the world.

In 2011, Gary stepped into one of his most profound and personal assignments: serving as an independent missionary in Rwanda, Africa. For three years, he ministered directly in orphanages across the country, bringing hope, healing, and the love of Christ to children who had experienced unimaginable loss. This season deepened his heart for the vulnerable and reinforced his belief in the power of presence, that showing up, consistently and sacrificially, changes lives.

Building on this foundation of hands-on global ministry, Gary was appointed Part-time Executive Director of International Christian Mission Services (ICMS) in 2013, assuming the role on a full-time basis in 2016, a position he continues to hold today. In this capacity, he provides strategic leadership for a mission organization dedicated to advancing the gospel and serving communities around the globe. Under his leadership, ICMS has deepened its field operations, expanded its network of partners, and sustained a long-term commitment to both evangelism and compassionate service.

Throughout his career, Gary Janzen has demonstrated that faithful ministry is not confined to a single role, a single country, or a single season of life. From the youth room in Chilliwack to the orphanages of Rwanda; from church boardrooms in Langley to mission fields in Peru and the Philippines, he has followed God's call with consistency, courage, and compassion. His life stands as a testimony to the enduring power of servant leadership, and to what is possible when a person commits, decade after decade, to showing up for others.

Website:

• www.icms.org

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you.

Pastor Gary, it's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I'm in Vancouver, Canada.

Were you always in the western part of Canada?

I grew up in central Canada in Winnipeg.

My family lived there.

I went through high school and through college there.

And I moved out west as I met my wife.

And we got married and she's from the west coast.

And so we came here.

Wow.

What a quick summary.

It sounds as though you're 25 in that summary.

Times three, yeah.

Wow, that's amazing.

Wow.

So you met your wife and take me back to Jesus, meeting Jesus first.

What did that look like?

I grew up in a Christian home.

I spent a course of time in church and in various activities.

Actually, my pastor played basketball and I loved playing basketball.

It was through conversations with him.

We'd be out shooting hoops and he led me to the Lord.

That was a really solid moment in my life where I just knelt and asked God into my life.

So it was just through our church relationship.

Sports has been a core component of who you are, has it?

I had the opportunity to manage a sporting goods store in a small community here in British Columbia.

For me, it was really fun because it was Christmas every day when new inventory would come in.

I would get to be opening these boxes and see this incredible product line.

And so I came at a time when the store was losing money and they brought me in.

It was in the early 1980s and there was quite a difficult economic climate.

We had the opportunity to turn the tide around and we actually broke even the first year of my work there.

And then we started profiting as we went.

I served there for about five years.

And so it was just a lot of, again, meeting incredible people, serving, and again, learning to serve and learning to meet the needs of the clients, the customers that came in.

So that was really forming a lot in my life as I was serving in the church at the same time.

But it just carried out into my job as well.

What do you think was responsible for you being able to help the store grow?

Personality, I think.

I viewed every customer as valued and important.

And people began to return because they liked the culture of the store.

We brought in new products and we were selling windsurfers, we were selling trampolines, as well as a full range of sporting equipment.

It was just the relational aspect, I believe.

And that's been a kind of a foundation of all the different things that I've been able to do as the Spirit of God through me would be reaching out and touching people.

And many times people would sense a difference and comment on something.

What's different?

What are you about?

And it was just being able to listen.

I've been told that I'm a good listener.

So it's just, again, hearing, sensing, and then meeting the needs that the people have, in this case, in the store.

Your relationship with the customers is expressed in the growth.

What about, I would imagine, there's upper management that you're dealing with in terms of getting permission to actually bring new ideas into fruition.

How was that at that point in time?

It was a small organization.

So I had free reign, pretty much.

I had an owner that would sign off on everything.

And so I could bring products to them.

And we had, again, a very good relationship.

And there was a great deal of trust, especially as I broke even the first year.

That really sparked their interest, of course, because they were losing money before I got there.

So that really turned the corner.

And then I was able to, again, through the trust that was built, be able to build the business there.

At the time of this recording, as we're looking back, how many years of ministry have you been in?

I've been in ministry now for about 50 years.

What would you tell the young missionary coming up to look out for?

Stay focused on what God is calling you to do.

And then for people like me, I'll see a need and I just want to run and meet it.

And I just want to go and do as much as I can in that situation.

But yet discernment to be able to say, you know, that's outside of my strength.

That's outside of my ability.

And so let's hand that off to somebody else that's better able to manage and to cope with that and to minister in those areas.

And then I imagine the power of that really resonates because it took one, well, at least a one-on-one game of basketball for you to be years after 50-something, years after representing the kingdom the way you are.

Yes.

Yeah.

No, it's very much, again, as I can look back and go back to that moment and go back to that place.

And, you know, is simply here again, here's a gentleman that really cared.

But he took time away from bigger things to play basketball with a young 15, 14-year-old boy to just shoot some hoops and hang out there and go into questions of life and faith and hope and really build that relationship.

And so, yes, it resonates all the way through to, again, listening and hearing and being a good-ass questioner, give questions.

When you look at the life of Christ, most of his conversations were questions.

What is the biggest challenge in your ministry today?

Biggest challenge is younger people are looking for experience, are looking for excitement.

And, you know, there's been—I grew up in an era of really relative calm, relative peace, and today there's so much turmoil, so much unrest, so much uncertainty.

I think there's a term in missions called VUCA.

But that's the world we live in, and there's just so much uncertainty, so much complexity, so much ambiguity.

And so people, you know, are very volatile.

And so there's not a confidence to go out necessarily as much.

As a young man, I traveled.

My parents let me go.

I went to Europe for four months.

I traveled, hitchhiked, rode trains.

And I could never imagine my kids allowing their kids to go, you know, anywhere without somebody watching them.

So there's that kind of a world that we live in.

And young people in general, there's a shift now.

God is moving for sure.

There's a large surge now of people willing to give their life for the kingdom.

Whereas in the comfort and in all the different things that I experienced in my midlife, it was, you know, there was people making commitments and going for sure.

But today, again, there's this shift that's taking place, but that's what I see.

The challenge is getting people, young, new married couples, new young men and women that, you know, give their life to the Lord wholeheartedly.

And that's a challenge on the mission field.

If we fast forward five years from today, and you're listening to this conversation, whether it be by some means, you just pick the thing up and you're listening to it.

What is the message you'd leave for future you?

The message I would leave for future me.

Well, I think just backing up in Isaiah a little bit, there's a verse 31 in 40.

It says, but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

They shall run and not be weary.

They shall walk and not faint.

And the message would be to hold on to wait on the Lord.

And that word wait means like wrapping a blanket around yourself and just becoming, you know, in that posture, in that position.

And to continue, Gary, to wait upon the Lord, because he will direct your steps.

He will.

And he will provide all the things that are required to accomplish the things that God has birthed us to do.

It's been a great honor to have a conversation with you in closing.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Just love God, love people, and just watch and see what God is going to do.

Gary, a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on what has inspired my 12-minute conference.