Evangelism?
​

Most people have probably heard of “evangelists.” An evangelist is a person who has a personal conviction and faith in Jesus. If the word is at all familiar, the first—and perhaps most common—image that comes to mind is something like Billy Graham preaching in a stadium.

​

God, however, uses us as people from within our own backgrounds and gifts. Some are well-known names who proclaim to the masses; others evangelize jogging companions on the running trail; some travel and speak in churches; others evangelize on the streets by talking with people…

​

God uses me through my natural, creative gifts. In 2011, I was commissioned as an art evangelist in my then home church, Mikkeli Evangelical Free Church, where I served in this role with an official letter of recommendation from the congregation.

​

(Below, if you wish, you can listen to an interview conducted by Radio Dei in July 2018, in which I talk more about art evangelism 🙂)

​

​

​

​

​​

The Calling of an Evangelist

 

I received the calling of an evangelist immediately when I met Jesus in 2003. In the early years of my faith, I was more hesitant to evangelize verbally, but God opened a way through another route—in an IKEA store in London; He does not look at time or place! 😄

​

The matter began to unfold through so-called miniature roomboxes and later expanded to include paintings, crafts, and writing, as well as music. In practice, this means that I share my own faith in Jesus through visual and musical means.

​

So how does actual “evangelism” take place when I am not always even physically present myself? I have participated in many, many group exhibitions in Finland and the Netherlands, and I have also organized numerous solo exhibitions. I always take my exhibitions to places where the people are who do not come to church. My natural arenas are therefore, for example, libraries, hospitals, day centers, rehabilitation activity centers, schools (at least some years ago)… In short, all kinds of places where one does not necessarily even expect to encounter art.

​

My works are often such that they can be easy to pass by, yet they are different enough that if one stops in front of them, they speak more than a thousand words. That is the moment when my “calling as an evangelist” is fulfilled. 🙂

​

On the Musical Side...

​

…my calling is above all to encourage believers to grow in faith through my own life story, carried by spiritual music. My instrument is the piano and singing. Working through music has at times been extremely challenging, because despite my openness, I experience myself as being alone and “unprotected” behind the piano. A panic disorder that emerged in my teenage years eventually led to a period of about two years during which I did not touch the piano even at home. In a wonderful way, God began to heal this “fear of performance” during the year 2021. Today, I experience it as a great blessing that one of my channels of self-expression, in all its modesty, may be in the Father’s use.

​

I have also emphasized, especially in workshop settings, the courage to entrust oneself to God’s hands, for example in ministry situations. I believe that the biblical truth that God’s power is made perfect in weakness becomes tangibly real precisely in such situations—those in which we are willing to take the risk of being rejected, of failing “publicly,” and yet still have in our hearts the desire to do what we sense the Father asking of us. The Father’s blessing is always present when our own strength has been stripped away and

we exalt Him.