Eccentric Frisian Reverend, a mobile sermon tiger that travelled from church to church with a racing bike.
He was the son of Jacob Zelle (10 Nov 1879, Leeuwarden – 30 Dec 1955), a warehouseman and Jantje Brouwer (1 Dec 1876, Kubaard – ca 1962), a school cleaner, who got four children: Sjoukje, a needlewoman (22 Aug 1905 – 1/6 Febr 1996), Johannes the Preacher, Jan Jacob ( 18 August 1908, Leeuwarden- 7 June 1911, Leeuwarden) and and Jacob (10 May-1912, Leeuwarden – ?), a grocer.
Coming from a low born labour family, he could somehow visit the Reformed Gymnasium in Leeuwarden and study Theology at the Reformed “Free” University of Amsterdam (VU). He got his Candidate Exam in 1944 and was called first to the Lord’s duty on 16 June 1949 in Rockanje. On 21 October 1949 he became a reformed church reverend. His first sermon was held 6 November 1949 in Rockanje. He showed up as an independent loner (“op eigen wijze”) that shocked his sheep with his sermons. He wore long black hair, had an athletic physics and had unsalted opinions on his community. It was all “Sodom and Gomarrah” in their personal lives. He showed little affection to his sheep. He was accused of being a misor, keeping the vicarage unwarmed for the visitors and hiring the vicarage secretly to others to keep the money.
He asked to resign and on 1 April 1956 it was acknowledged. After that, the unmarried athlete and Reverent Zelle, which physical appearance and sermons appealed to many women, stayed unmarried. He returned to the house of his mother in Leeuwarden, Gysbert Japicxstraat 82, named after the Frisian writer, poet, schoolmaster and cantor Gysbert Japiks.
In Leeuwarden he went every day to the swimming pool in Huizum to improve his condition. He was invited to preach in the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands a lot. He preferred to go the churches with his racing bike, on Sunday doing up to four sermons in different villages per day. His biking travels made him very hungry. The churches who invited him also had to offer him a gregarious meal. But the audience was flabbergasted by his unorthodox roaring, singing and jumping G’d in me revival of showing up.
He kept on living sober in his mother house, stuffed with notes that he kept for himself.
Reverend Zelle never married and was a relative of the famous Margaret Gertrude Zelle, also known as Mata Hari. He died 11 May 1983 in Leeuwarden.

Link to Dutch Wikipedia