1 877-431-4276Come Alive Finland | Matias Toivainen
Matias Toivainen is an evangelist from Finland. Matias and his team have been doing incredible work across Finland, traveling the country with a “Jesus truck” and holding powerful gospel campaigns that have led many to give their lives to Christ. On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, we will hear about the amazing testimonies and salvations they’ve witnessed, as well as Matias’ involvement in the Global Evangelist Alliance and his heart for pioneer missions to unreached people groups around the world.This episode will inspire you to be a bold witness for the gospel, wherever God has called you. Let’s dive in!
Learn More About Matias Toivainen: https://www.armofgrace.com/team/matias-toivainen
Transcript:
Evangelist Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I am very excited to have with me a special guest today, Mattias from Finland. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Matias Toivainen (00:10):
Yes, thank you for having me, and thank you for being in our country
Evangelist Daniel King (00:13):
Now. It’s very exciting what God is doing in your nation and over the last two months, your team has been working very hard to do multiple outreaches in multiple countries. Tell me about that.
Matias Toivainen (00:27):
Basically what you see behind us is something that we’re calling the Jesus truck. And so we had an idea, our dear friend Henry is here, he’s been leading the Send Finland and we’ve been doing an evangelism campaign, a crusade in Helsinki, our capital city. And so we had an idea, we got together last autumn and we just decided, hey, a lot of the different cities are starting to ask for evangelism in their town. What can we do? And so the send had touring teams and we had this kind of crusade ecosystem that we had been kind of pioneering here in Finland. And so we decided, let’s join forces, let’s go on a tour around the country. They send touring teams come, they mobilize the churches, they activate them, especially the young people. They’ve been doing a great job with that. And then we bring the truck and set up in the middle of the city and do kind of a crusade style proclamation gospel campaign. And so this is our, I believe, 11th stop. We started on the last day of April and through the very cold finished spring, we’ve been going until now in the middle of May we finish here in tame with you.
Evangelist Daniel King (01:33):
Well, tonight was just such a beautiful night. Many people were here, many people gave their lives to Jesus, and you’ve been seeing Jesus do really wonderful things in Finland. What are some of the testimonies of what has happened while you’ve been doing this evangelism across Finland?
Matias Toivainen (01:50):
Well, I must say I was really impressed by God in my own native town in lti. This is a town where I lived for five, well, I lived for many years, but for five or six years I preach the gospel every day with some exceptions. I’m traveling and sometimes not. But about approximately every day I was preaching for five or six days and five or six years. And in all that time I got to lead one person to Christ.
(02:16):
And so now we came with the Jesus truck after all those seeds being sewn in the past, we came back now five years later with the Jesus truck and we set up our preaching. And until tamper lofty, my native town was the biggest city. We had multiple churches working together. The biggest catches coming. And I remember one guy, he was walking through the market square where we had the campaign and he was walking with a book in his hands. He was on his way to the library to return a book that he was holding in his hands called What Is Christianity? And he was on his way to return this. He said, he has been seeking God, he’s been trying to find the truth. And as he was walking to the library, he saw the big sign with the Jesus tour and said to himself, nobody in my life has been talking about Jesus here on this square. And so he stopped to listen. He heard the clear gospel being preached. He saw people getting healed and he decided to surrender his whole life to Jesus. And I remember the pastor was crying with him, praying with him for like five minutes, and this guy was so impressed by how his life changed. And so we see this happening in our country now where people are searching for God, they’re seeking after him, God is drawing them. And so obviously we know our role to just go and tell them
(03:31):
About who Jesus is and call them to follow.
Evangelist Daniel King (03:33):
Now you’re a graduate of the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp with Daniel Kolenda, and I had the privilege of being one of the teachers for that camp. And it is so beautiful to see what you and some of the other bootcamp grads are doing here in Finland and around the world. It is really amazing. And so I’m just so excited that those seeds that were planted in your heart are now bearing fruit in so many different places. You look at what God is doing through the Evangelism Bootcamp and it’s in Africa and in Asia and now in Europe and in Central and South America and in North America, the whole world in Australia too, the whole world is being shaken by the gospel. And so where before there was one or two evangelists, now there is teams of 10 or 15
Matias Toivainen (04:25):
Evangelists.
Evangelist Daniel King (04:26):
Now you have started an organization here and you are particularly focused on pioneer missions and doing evangelism in difficult to reach places. Tell me a little bit about what God has been doing in Gambia.
Matias Toivainen (04:42):
Well, first of all, I must say thank you so much for teaching us in the bootcamp. We all remember very well. You took a whole week and then I think another week to teach us about gospel messages and crusade organizing and things like this. And so we were very blessed. And like you say, all over the world now, we are working
Evangelist Daniel King (04:59):
Now you teach your own class, now you see the it’s work to do a crusade.
Matias Toivainen (05:03):
It’s true, it’s true. Actually, we just had people preaching now who went through our training two months ago
(05:09):
And now she was preaching to her whole or to her own hometown, the gospel. And so we’ve been actually raising up our kind of vision is to do our part in finishing the great commission, specifically like you say in the unreached nations, unreached people groups where there is no church, there are no believers. 40% of the world live in unreached people groups, and so we want to go after them. You mentioned Gambia, it’s a Muslim country in Africa, it’s only about 2 million people, 96 to 98% Muslim. And so the great opportunity though is it’s a small country and they all speak English. It’s a young population and there’s full freedom of religion to share the gospel. There aren’t major issues with persecution against Christians. And so we share the gospel to the youth. We organize these youth campaigns where the children and the young people come and hear about Jesus.
(06:07):
They experience healing the Holy Spirit. Also, we are doing something called Jesus camps. And so our heart is to kind of go where we’re most needed and make ourselves useless. And so we say the power is not in the white skin, the power is in the gospel. And so we want to raise up the local people and just pass on to them what we’ve received from Daniel Kolenda and yourself and other teachers to pass it on to them and release them to run with the gospel. And so that’s what we’ve been doing in Gambia and in about 40 other countries, 45 other countries with like you say, a focus in the unreached world. And we’re also doing a crusade this year in Gambia with another bootcamp graduate and his team, Jacob Ebersol, you may have had,
Evangelist Daniel King (06:51):
Yeah, Jacob’s a good friend. I’ve had him on the podcast before and he’s a great evangelist.
Matias Toivainen (06:56):
Yes, definitely
Evangelist Daniel King (06:57):
Full of faith.
Matias Toivainen (06:59):
And so the guys are around now. Five years ago the bootcamp started and imagine what can happen in the next five years.
Evangelist Daniel King (07:07):
Yeah, I remember in Tanzania I was doing one of the Capitalis crusades with Christ for all nations, and there was a man who had been Muslim, but he came to Jesus. Jacob Ebersol had led him to
Matias Toivainen (07:25):
Jesus. Oh, I remember.
Evangelist Daniel King (07:26):
And he got baptized. It was such a beautiful story of what Jesus can do.
Matias Toivainen (07:31):
Yes. In Khama. And he was about to become an imam and deep in the Islamic process and world. But yeah, Jacob went and pulled him to
Evangelist Daniel King (07:43):
Christ. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about some of the other countries that you’re looking at.
Matias Toivainen (07:51):
Yeah, so one of the things that, so we have an organization registered in Finland called Arm of Grace International. And so it’s kind of a Finn team doing pioneer missions. We do India, we do Bangladesh, we do Thailand, also some disaster relief, Ukraine, Bangladesh. We help some children get rescued from the sex trafficking and be taken into a safe home. One of the things we also do is we’re hosting kind of an international ministry called Jesus Camps. And this is an equipping ministry where our goal, again is to raise up local national people in their own country to preach the gospel in their own city, in their own language to their own people. And so this is our first calendar year doing that. We’re working in about 50 countries all the way from Russia, Israel, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and most of Latin America.
(08:58):
And so yeah, there’s just something that God is doing with raising up an entire generation to preach the gospel. The way we think about it is traditionally missions has worked kind of like a pyramid where the man of God comes and everything is gathered around them to support their ministry. And so what we see God doing is kind of flipping the pyramid upside down where he brings the servants or the ministers to come low and just build what the rest of the church ought to be doing. So that’s where we kind of see our place in a lot of places. And some places, like in some countries in South Asia, there is no evangelism, there are no evangelists. And so then we want to be the first ones to kind of just come alongside the local believers and believe with them for a new breakthrough in evangelism. And so we’ve seen that happen in Bangladesh, in India, and just places where traditionally it was thought of as impossible. And we’ve been told for 10 years that you can’t even get into the country to try, but God is doing something supernatural.
Evangelist Daniel King (10:03):
God is opening the door. Let’s talk about the Global Evangelist Alliance.
Matias Toivainen (10:08):
We
Evangelist Daniel King (10:09):
Just completed here in Finland, the World Pentecostal Conference, and many Pentecostal leaders from around the world came here to Finland for that. And it was hosted by Dr. Billy Wilson, who also leads Empowered 21. And so under Empowered 21, there is a group of evangelists called the Global Evangelist Alliance. And we had a meeting and there were so many Finnish evangelists that are excited about evangelism. And so you want to empower evangelists from here in Finland to go around the world. And so talk to me a little bit about if someone wants to be part of the Finn Evangelism Group, what shall they do?
Matias Toivainen (10:51):
Well, yeah, God is doing that here in our country too, which makes me rejoice. I’m looking behind me. There’s Consta, 19 years old, there’s family, 25 years old. There’s all these people. Most of these people, they have received training from us and also been sent to the Mission Field Consta. I found him as a 17-year-old, and I could see God has a calling for him as an evangelist. And so when he was 18, I brought him with me to Asia and he was preaching to hundreds of Muslims and seeing the Sikh healed.
Evangelist Daniel King (11:25):
And
Matias Toivainen (11:25):
Now he’s been actually leading missions and equipping others.
(11:29):
And this is something that God is doing in Finland. He’s raising up the goers again. And like you mentioned, we have the Global Evangelist Alliance Network, also very fresh, started here in Finland with about 70 people on the first call. Lucas Stein is leading that group with myself and some others. And yeah, you can just find Lucas Stein or myself, Mattias to, I’m sure it’ll be written somewhere here on the episode. And just send us a text. Hey, you have a network of evangelists in Finland. How can I be a part of that? And we’ll connect with you.
Evangelist Daniel King (12:05):
If someone has a heart for Pioneer missions and wants to help you to reach some of these nations that are on reach that have such a huge number of people that need Jesus, how can they find out more about your ministry and even support you with what you’re called to do?
Matias Toivainen (12:22):
Definitely. You can go to our website, arm of grace.com or you can go to our Instagram page, arm of Grace International. And so we definitely need the help to go and bring the gospel to the people who have never heard it before. And also I recognize there are some people who God is calling to go and come with us. And so we definitely, it’s only a matter of laborers. The harvest is out there, the harvest is open, the harvest is ready. Send us a message, we’ll find a way for you to get to the field. Most likely this autumn, this November, we’re bringing a group of Finnish people who answered the call in the sand to come to Cambodia with us. And we’re there with other bootcamp graduates, Dario Justina and others just go to the unre, tell them about Jesus and even planting churches
Evangelist Daniel King (13:14):
And
Matias Toivainen (13:14):
Just come
Evangelist Daniel King (13:16):
In the past, there’s been a great move of Finn missionaries,
Matias Toivainen (13:21):
And
Evangelist Daniel King (13:22):
As I’ve traveled around the world, I’ve met Finnish missionaries. My wife was a missionary in Papua New Guinea for a year, and she met finished missionaries there that were helping to translate the Bible. And she said, even in the hot tropical nation, they were finished missionaries because they all had a sauna in their house, proper Finn missionaries. But I believe that God is now raising up a new generation of fins that will have an impact on the world.
Matias Toivainen (13:50):
Yes, it’s true. I have lived on the mission field for about 26 years. So when I was nine months old, my family moved to Kosovo.
Evangelist Daniel King (14:02):
Wow.
Matias Toivainen (14:02):
They were the first Finnish missionaries, I believe, to be in Kosovo where Christianity, as we know it is only about 30, 40 years old. And so I’ve grown up kind of in the missions world on a few continents in many countries. And what I saw was a very different kind of approach to missions. It was very kind of humanitarian development aid, a bit political, social. There was a reluctance to kind of take risk in terms of preaching the gospel or making disciples in areas where it’s not so where it’s a bit more hostile. And so when I answered the call for myself as a 15-year-old and I went, God sent me to all these places where things haven’t really been going that much in the recent past with the gospel message, I was always alone. Nobody would come with me. I was alone. It was hard. I didn’t see any fruit. People were discouraging me from going. But now something has happened in the past few years where wherever I want to go, I’m never alone. And a lot of the times it’ll be fins around me. It’ll always be people from sea fans somehow.
(15:17):
But a lot of the times it’ll be fins also.
Evangelist Daniel King (15:21):
Amen.
Matias Toivainen (15:22):
Well,
Evangelist Daniel King (15:22):
May God raise up a mighty army of Finnish evangelists and always, if I had a ministry in Finland, I’d name it, finish the great commission, or it is finished. But praise the Lord. God is using fins to do great things for his kingdom. So Mattias, thank you for being on the Evangelism podcast. I appreciate
Matias Toivainen (15:41):
It. Thank you, Daniel. And thank you for pitching the gospel to our people,
Evangelist Daniel King (15:44):
And thank you for helping to organize this great event here and all the different events that you’re doing around Finland. It’s so beautiful to see what God’s been doing.
Matias Toivainen (15:54):
Thank you. Yes. Well, really it’s our team, brother, pat and others. But
Evangelist Daniel King (15:58):
Yes,
Matias Toivainen (15:58):
We’re with you. Thank you. Come back to Europe.
Evangelist Daniel King (16:01):
Thank you. God bless you.