Frank Jenner Frank Arthur " Bones " Jenner ( surname often misspelled Genor ) ( November 2 , 1903 - May 8 , 1977 ) was an English Australian evangelist whose signature approach to evangelism was to ask people on George Street , Sydney the question " If you died within 24 hours , where would you be in eternity ? Heaven or hell ? " He was born in Southampton , Hampshire . At the age of 12 , during World War I , he was sent to work aboard a training ship for misbehaving boys . While the ship was docked at a port in West Africa , he was bitten by a tsetse fly , contracted African trypanosomiasis , and suffered from narcolepsy for the rest of his life . He eventually joined the Royal Navy , but deserted in New York and joined the United States Navy . When he was 24 , he deserted again , this time in Australia . There , he met Jessie Peters , who he married in 1929 . In 1937 , Jenner encountered a group of men of the Glanton Exclusive Brethren who were engaging in open - air preaching , and he converted to Christianity . Jessie initially thought that he had become manic or insane , but she became a Christian later that year . They became part of the Glanton Brethren for a time , but switched to the Open Brethren in the 1940s . For 28 years , from his initial conversion until his debility from Parkinson ' s disease , Jenner engaged in personal evangelism , probably speaking with more than 100 , 000 people in total . He aimed to talk with ten different people every day . One of the people who became a Christian after having been asked Jenner ' s question was Noel Stanton , who went on to found the Jesus Army . In 1952 , The Reverend Francis Willmore Dixon of Lansdowne Baptist Church in Bournemouth , England began hearing several Christian testimonies from people who converted to Christianity after having been accosted on George Street , Sydney by a man who asked them whether they were going to heaven or hell . The following year , he travelled to Australia to engage in itinerant preaching and , after hearing several more such stories , eventually found Jenner . Dixon told Jenner about the people he had met who had become Christians as a result of Jenner ' s evangelism , and Jenner , now 50 years old , cried because he had not previously known that even one of the people he had talked to had converted . Jenner died from colorectal cancer in 1977 . While he was alive , very few people knew of him , but after he died , tales of his evangelistic activities circulated widely and the details of his life became exaggerated and falsified . Apocrypha l accounts were common until 2000 , when Raymond Wilson published a book called " Jenner of George Street : Sydney ' s Soul - Winning Sailor " in an attempt to tell the story of Jenner ' s life accurately . Exaggerated stories about Jenner ' s evangelism continued to be written by such people as Ray Comfort and Ché Ahn , but more accurate accounts began to circulate as well , such as in the 2013 documentary film " The Frank Jenner Question " , directed by Gary Wilkinson . Early life . Frank Arthur Jenner was born on November 2 , 1903 in Southampton , Hampshire , England , United Kingdom . He had platinum blond hair . His father was a hotel pub owner and former sea captain . Jenner had four brothers . He was anti - authoritarian as a boy and , at the age of 12 , during World War I , he was sent to work aboard a training ship for misbehaving boys . When he was 14 , the ship sailed from Southampton to Cape Town , South Africa . On the way , while the ship was docked at a port in West Africa , a tsetse fly bit Jenner and infected him with " Trypanosoma " ; he therefore contracted African trypanosomiasis , which is also called " sleeping sickness " . He subsequently entered a 15 - day coma , but he eventually recovered . Thenceforward , he suffered from excessive daytime sleepiness and was eventually diagnosed with narcolepsy , which prevented him from ever being able to driving a car . When the war ended , he returned to England . Navy career . Jenner eventually joined the Royal Navy , but deserted in New York City , New York , United States . He soon joined the United States Navy , with which he learned how to gamble . He quickly developed the impulse control disorder of problem gambling . He became particularly attached to the game craps , which was popular in the United States at the time . He started to keep a rabbit ' s foot in the left upper pocket of his shirt , and would rub it with his left hand while he rolled the dice with his right . His shipmates therefore began calling him " Bones " , a nickname that he retained for the rest of his navy career . When he was 24 , the United States Navy took him to Melbourne , Australia and he deserted again . There , he met Charlie Peters , who invited him to his home to have a meal with his family . He then met Jessie , Peters ' 23 - year - old daughter . Jessie and Jenner married each other a year later , on July 6 , 1929 at HMAS " Cerberus " . They continued to live in Melbourne after their wedding and Jenner joined the Royal Australian Navy . He soon became one of the sailors assigned to travel to England to retrieve HMAS " Canberra " . He was serving on HMAS " Australia " in 1937 when he was legally discharged from the navy , buying his way out but not receiving a pension . In 1939 , with the onset of World War II , Jenner was recalled to active duty . Because of his narcolepsy , he was given shore duties in Sydney . In this capacity , he participated in undercover operation s and delivered sealed orders . After the war , he left the navy and became a janitor for IBM . Conversion to Christianity . In 1937 , Jenner encountered a group of men of the Glanton Exclusive Brethren standing in front of the National Australia Bank on Collins Street . One of the men was engaging in open - air preaching and using the phrase " Good News " to refer to the gospel . Jenner interrupted the man to say that he would listen to the man ' s good news provided that he was allowed to share some good news first . The man agreed , so Jenner taught the group of Brethren how to play craps there on the pavement . Then , one of the Brethren invited Jenner into his home for tea and told him about the gospel . Jenner then converted to Christianity and , when he went home , told Jessie that she was a sinner bound for hell and therefore in need of salvation . Jessie thought that Jenner had become manic or insane . They had a young daughter named Ann by this point , and Jenner was gambling so much that he wasn ' t providing for his family . For both of these reasons , Jessie left Jenner and moved to Corowa to work on a farm there , taking Ann with her . She said that she would return only when Jenner regained his sanity . On several occasions , he agressively told Jessie ' s brothers that they needed to become Christians , which angered them . On one of these occasions , their conversation became physical and they began punching each other . The brothers rejected Jenner and were never reconciled to him . He also wrote to his family back in England , telling them about his religious conversion and asking them to become Christians as well , but they did not respond . Later in 1937 , Jessie became seriously infected with boil s and , while under the care of a Glanton Brethren family , converted to Christianity . Before the end of the year , Jenner and Jessie began living together again . Although Jenner gave up gambling , he was often unemployed because he would evangelize at his workplace and then be fired . In 1939 , Jessie developed a peptic ulcer because of their lack of money , so she and Ann moved to India to live with Jenner ' s aunt Emily McKenzie , who ran the Kotagiri Keswick Missionary Home . Ann subsequently attended Hebron School until she was 10 years old . Once Jessie had recovered from her illness , they returned to Sydney on SS " Oronsay " . Jenner normally went to sleep around 9 : 30 PM so that he could wake up to pray at 5 AM . In the 1940s , Jenner left the Glanton Brethren and joined the Open Brethren . For the rest of his life , Jenner attended Open Brethren churches : one on Goulburn Street and the other in Bexley . At these churches , people did not understand what narcolepsy was and thought that Jenner was consistently falling asleep during services because he lacked respect for God . The church on Goulburn Street also disapproved of his partnership with other Christian organizations and churches ; Jenner actively partnered with The Navigators , Campaigners for Christ , Baptists , Anglicans , and Methodists . Evangelism . Out of gratitude to God for giving him salvation , Jenner committed to consistently engaging in personal evangelism , and aimed to talk with ten different people every day thenceforward . For 28 years , from his initial conversion until his debility from Parkinson ' s disease , Jenner engaged in this form of evangelism , probably speaking with more than 100 , 000 people in total , hundreds of whom made an initial professions of conversion to Christianity . He kept religious tracts in his shirt pocket where he had previously kept his rabbit ' s foot , and he often gave these tracts to people he met . He also kept a card in his pocket with Philippians 4 : 13 on it in order to give himself courage in evangelizing . This verse reads " I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me . " While engaging in these activities , Jenner would normally wear a white shirt , black shoes , and trousers , and sometimes a navy greatcoat . Normally evangelizing on George Street , Sydney , Jenner asked many people the same question : " If you died within 24 hours , where would you be in eternity ? Heaven or hell ? " If they were willing to engage in conversation with him , he would invite them either to his home or to a local church . The question became known as " the Frank Jenner question . " Jenner was most active in evangelism during World War II . On Saturday nights during the war , Jenner would invite groups of sailors to his home for a service consisting of some hymn s and a short sermon . One of the people to whom Jenner posed his question was Noel Stanton , a man from Bedfordshire in the East of England who was serving in Sydney with the Royal Navy at the time . Stanton felt convicted for several months afterwards and consequently converted to Christianity the next year . Stanton went on to found the Jesus Army . In 1945 , Jenner approached Norrie Jeffs , who had just returned from participating in Operation Meridian at Palembang on Sumatra , and , having asked Jeffs his question , Jeffs responded that he was already a Christian . Jenner then invited Jeffs over to his house , where Jeffs met several other visitors including the woman who would later become his wife . In 1952 , another person Jenner accosted with his question on George Street was Ian Boyden , a man from Roseville who was serving in the Royal Australian Air Force at the time . After having a brief conversation with Jenner , Boyden accepted Jenner ' s invitation to attend a church service at Renwick Gospel Hall , where he responded to the sermon by committing to living as a Christian thenceforward , which he did for at least 50 years . Many other people who had a brief encounter with Jenner on the street in Sydney also converted to Christianity , but Jenner did not realize that any of the people he accosted had remained a Christian beyond their initial profession of faith until 1953 , when Francis Dixon told him the stories of several such people . When Dave Rosten , another Sydney evangelist , attempted to imitate Jenner ' s method of evangelism , he was punched in the midriff by the first person he spoke to , so he decided that Jenner ' s approach to evangelism was not for others to emulate . In 1947 , Jenner asked his question to a man on George Street named Angus Carruthers , who responded that he was a Christian and going to heaven . Jenner invited Carruthers back to his home , where Carruthers met Jenner ' s daughter , Ann . Carrthers and Ann married three years later . Discovery by Francis Dixon . The Reverend Francis Willmore Dixon was the head pastor of Lansdowne Baptist Church in Bournemouth , England , and his youth pastor , Peter Culver , had become a Christian as a result of having met Jenner on George Street , Sydney on September 2 , 1945 and having been asked his question . In 1952 , at an All Nations Bible College event , Dixon and Culver had heard Noel Stanton ' s Christian testimony , which included the episode in which Stanton had met Jenner . Dixon then realized that Culver and Stanton must have become Christians as a result of the same man . The following year , Dixon heard two different British sailors who did not know each other tell their testimonies at Lansdowne Baptist Church , and both had told very similar stories to Culver and Stanton ; both had been walking down George Street and had been asked Jenner ' s question . Dixon then travelled to Australia with his wife to engage in itinerant preaching there . There , Dixon hoped to find Jenner , whose name he did not yet know . In Adelaide , Dixon told the stories of Culver and Stanton while preaching . Murray Wilkes then approached Dixon and said that he had also become a Christian after having been asked Jenner ' s question on George Street . At a Methodist church in Perth , Dixon told Culver ' s , Stanton ' s , and Wilkes ' stories again , and met yet another person who had converted to Christianity after an encounter with Jenner . Finally arriving in Sydney , Dixon asked Alec Gilchrist of Campaigners for Christ if he knew a man who asked strangers on George Street whether or not they were headed for heaven or hell . Gilchrist was familiar with Jenner and connected Dixon with him . Dixon visited Jenner at his house and told him about all the people he had met who had converted to Christianity because of Jenner ' s evangelism . Jenner , now 50 years old , had never before heard of even one person living their lives as Christians as a result of his evangelism , and he cried upon hearing that there were several . After returning to England , Dixon went on to discover another person who had become a Christian because of Jenner in Bournemouth and another at the Keswick Convention in Keswick , Cumbria . In 1957 , Dixon was preaching in Ooty , Nilgiris , Tamil Nadu , India and spoke about Jenner , where an Australian missionary said that she was another . In 1961 , Dixon went to Jamaica and spoke about Jenner at a Congregational church near Kingston , and an Australian there told Dixon that he had also become a Christian because of having been asked Jenner ' s question on George Street . By 1979 , Dixon had discovered 10 people who had become Christians as a result of Jenner ' s evangelism . It is because of Dixon that the story of Jenner ' s evangelism began to be told . Dixon ' s wife Nancy wrote an account of Jenner ' s evangelism , which she called " The Jenner Story " . Later life . In later years , Jenner developed Parkinson ' s disease and therefore went into retirement . With money that Jessie had inherited , the couple moved to Bexley in 1953 , where they began attending Bexley Gospel Hall . Towards the end of his life , Jenner developed dementia and his narcolepsy worsened . For six months , he was confined to a bed and was treated with amphetamine . He was then diagnosed with colorectal cancer and spent a subsequent ten days at Calvary Hospital , Kogarah , New South Wales , where he died at 11 : 45 PM on May 8 , 1977 at the age of 73 . His body was given a police escort to the burial , which took place at Woronora Lawn Cemetery . His wife died two years later . Legacy . While Jenner was alive , very few people knew of him and the effects of his evangelism were largely unrecognized . After his death , however , stories about his evangelism circulated broadly . Tales of his evangelistic activities generated a largely oral tradition in which the details of Jenner ' s life became exaggerated and various false elements were introduced , and some apocrypha l accounts were written . Many storytellers said that Jenner was small in stature and that he had white hair ; neither of these descriptions is true . An account containing this inaccurate description of Jenner was published in " Counsel Magazine " in 1996 . In 2000 , Raymond Wilson published a book called " Jenner of George Street : Sydney ' s Soul - Winning Sailor " in an attempt to tell the story of Jenner ' s life accurately . Jenner ' s family had been finding it painful to have inaccurate accounts of Jenner ' s life circulating around the world , so they gave Wilson all the information he desired . Wilson wrote that Jenner was " eccentric . . . the very antithesis of the ' wise ' , ' mighty ' , and ' noble ' , " but that his life was therefore a good demonstration of 2 Corinthians 12 : 9 , which states that God ' s " power is made perfect in weakness . " Wilson wrote that Jenner ' s question of " heaven or hell " was very similar to that of Arthur Stace , another Australian street evangelist who wrote the word " Eternity " on the sidewalks so people would consider where they would be in eternity . Wilson called Jenner a battler and did not recommend that his readers emulate Jenner ' s evangelistic activities " unless Divinely fitted in a similar way . " Wilson wrote that he " travelled and corresponded widely to ascertain the facts of the story " and that he personally verified the accuracy of the information by retrieving first - hand accounts from all of the major figures in Jenner ' s life . The people Wilson interviewed included Nancy Dixon ; Ann and Angus Carruthers , Jenner ' s daughter and son - in - law ; Murray Wilkes ; Ian Boyden ; Tas McCarthy ; Peter Culver ; Noel Stanton ; and Mary Stares . Nonetheless , exaggerated and inaccurate accounts of Jenner ' s life continued to propogate at least as late as 2011 . One such inaccurate account of Jenner ' s evangelism was recorded by Ray Comfort on the Living Waters website and then repeated in the 2006 book " Spirit - led Evangelism : Reaching the Lost through Love and Power " by Ché Ahn . In these accounts , Jenner is referred to as " Mr . Genor " . Another similarly inaccurate account was published online by ASSIST News Service in 2011 . In the 2011 book " He Must Be the One : A Verse - by - Verse Study of Colossians " , Dino Pedrone recounted the story of Jenner ' s evangelism as discovered by Francis Dixon . A similar account appeared in the 2012 book " Evangelism : The Road Less Travelled " by Gene R . Simowitz . In 2013 , Gary Wilkinson produced and directed a documentary film about Jenner called " The Frank Jenner Question " , in which he interviewed Jenner ' s daughter and several of the people who had become Christians because of his evangelism . Also that year , Siobhan Livingston released her self - published book called " Go ! Sharing Jesus is Easy " , in which she encouraged Christians to tell people about their faith as Jenner had done . She devotes an entire chapter of her book to Jenner , using Wilson ' s " Jenner of George Street " as her source text . In this chapter , she suggests that those of her readers who are not good at public speaking or who do not have extensive knowledge of the Bible should learn from Jenner ' s life that such skills are not required in order to evangelize . Livingston compared the impact of Jenner ' s evangelistic activities to the account in the Gospel of John of the Feeding of the 5 , 000 , a miracle of Jesus in which Jesus multiplied a small meal so much that it was able to feed 5 , 000 people . Claire Goodwin also encouraged people to emulate Jenner by including an account of his evangelism in her 2013 book " Compelled to Tell : A Fascinating Journey from a New York Dead - End Street to a Lifetime of Ministry and Soul - Winning " .