Episode 1
Sakari Heikkilä (Finland)
Sakari Heikkilä is a renowned worship singer-songwriter and producer from Finland.
Many of his songs, like “Ennemän Sinua", are played in churches all over the country. He’s been leading worship in the New Wine Church and has been promoting worship culture inside the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland for the last 14 years. He has written many original worship songs in Finnish, and also made some translations into Finnish, like “God of this City”, “Forever” and “Blessed Be Your Name”.
He worked as a worship pastor for 8 years at Verkosto community church, which takes inspiration from the Anglican HTB. There he created a collective called Verkosto Kollektiivi - a group of artists and musicians who lead worship and write new music suitable for the Lutheran church context. Sakari Heikkilä wants the church’s worship sessions to be understandable, explainable, and inclusive and emphasizes that the Scripture should be the main source for song lyrics.
Nowadays he focuses on songwriting and music production, writing worship songs in Finnish and English.
Episode 2
Johanna Särkkälä (Finland)
Johanna Särkkälä has been leading worship in home meetings and churches for 25 years, composed 3 worship solo albums, including the well-known song “Taivaallinen” and took part in 25 co-productions with renowned artists like Pekka Simojoki and Rodrigo Campos. Her passion is to create a new sound and new ways to fill this earth with God's love. She wants to see the broken healed and the hopeless filled with hope.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in music and has worked as a professional musician since graduating in 2004. Her expertise is in singing, composing, and producing. She works as a vocal coach and producer.
She’s also leading a worship ministry called "Jylistys" which creates worship music and events for families with children. Jylistys works as a non-profit, non-denominational organization, providing Christian art education and discipling through music, dance, and painting. Jylistys has new songs waiting for recording and also has an English album waiting for a publisher and would love to get international connections with people who are passionate about families with children.
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Contact :
Website: www.johannasarkkala.com
Facebook: Johanna Sarkkala
Instagram: @johannasarkkala
Email: jylistys (at) gmail.com
Episode 3
Francesco Gangemi (Italy)
Francesco Gangemi is a worship leader and Christian singer-songwriter from Calabria in Italy. He is part of a godly and active family: he studied the Bible with his father, Silvio Gangemi, who is the pastor of 2 churches in Spezzano Albanese and Torano Scalo since 2005. Every month the Gangemi family organizes a food bank with their own funds to help more than 200 hundred families with food, clothes, and toys. This family's work and unity have a deep impact on their churches where you can witness a sincere love between the members.
Francesco has been traveling on mission trips to Germany and Uganda, where he led the worship. Every Sunday, he leads the worship in 2 church services with his brother Raffaele and his sister Erika. They recorded a worship album with their band “Following Jesus” and regularly organize concerts on the streets to preach the gospel to the world.
Contact :
Youtube: Following Jesus
Facebook: Following Jesus
Instagram: Following Jesus
Tik Tok: Following Jesus
Email: erikag2000.eg (at) gmail.com
Episode 4
Ari-Pekka Niemelä (Finland)
Contact :
Facebook: Uskosta Totta
Instagram: @uskostatotta
Spotify: Apa & Erika's Music
Email: uskostatotta (at) gmail.com
Ari-Pekka Niemelä is a worship leader from Helsinki in Finland. He studied the piano at the Pop and Jazz Conservatory and has a Master degree in Theology. He writes worship songs that he sings with his wife Erika. They both come from Christian families of missionary and preacher, and have a strong and inspiring relationship which they use to build a godly household. For the last 4 years, they’ve hosted a Christian TV program (Uskosta Totta / Truth form the Faith) where they study the Bible and share about practical spiritual life. Ari-Pekka emphasizes the importance of building a healthy faith, based on classical Christianity, strong biblical theology and knowledge of church history. With their 3 children they often worship at home, lead the worship in the church or give concerts in collaboration with bigger bands.
Episode 5
Arild Måsø (Norway)
Arild Måsø is a passionate worshiper who lives in the north of Norway with his wife Ragnhild Måsø. He is part of the indigenous Sami people and for over thirty years, he has been worshiping the Lord and a pioneer in using joik, the unique Sami way of singing, to glorify God. His mission is to preach the gospel to different indigenous peoples and to encourage them to worship God with their own sound, instruments, and culture. To do so, he has been traveling all over the world from the north of Russia to the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Greenland, and Australia.
Arild and Ragnhild live on a unique and beautiful estate by the Tana-river where they founded the Sami Indigenous Christian Center, a non-profit organization. They are working to develop the vision God gave them for many years about building a Christian center to equip Christians with the word of God and to worship the Lord in freedom.
Every summer they organize the one-week-long “Arctic North Summer Conference” in Lakksjokka, where thousands of people have gathered since 2014. The conference has been broadcasted on the Finnish national channel TV7, where Arild has also been preaching. Additionally, they have a passion for helping the Jews from Russia on their way home to Israel.
Episode 6 & 7
Wilson Bugembe (Uganda)
Contact :
Website: The Worship House
Charity: Mercy Child Care
Facebook: Pastor Wilson Bugembe
Instagram: @wilsonbugembe
Youtube: Wilson Bugembe
Email: wbugembe@gmail.com
Wilson Bugembe is a famous gospel artist from Uganda and leader of the Worship House in Kampala. He received the Best Gospel Artist Pearl of Africa Music Awards for his songs like “Omwoyo we”, a deep song about the Spirit of God.
His life is a powerful testimony of God's power and grace: Wilson was an orphan after his parents died from HIV. Then he resorted to the Kampala streets facing life all alone. He ate from the city dustbins and slept under a tree for over two years. But thanks to God, Wilson Bugembe’s life changed completely and today he’s one of the prominent people the country celebrates. He is a pastor at the Worship House a church of 6000 members and is involved in different charity works, like an orphanage, a shelter for street drug users, and the Mercy Schools focusing on providing education to orphans and the less privileged children by giving them a chance to literacy.
Episode 8
Fiona Chow (Canada)
Contact :
Website: Fiona Chow Singing Lessons
Facebook: Fiona Chow
Facebook: Kingdom Singers Choir
Email: fionatchow (at) gmail.com
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Fiona Chow holds graduate degrees in both music theory and voice performance from Mannes College of Music in New York City. She started singing in the Vancouver Bach Children’s chorus when she was eleven years old and has not stopped since! She currently resides in Helsinki, Finland, where she teaches music theory and history at Sibelius Academy. She is also a voice and piano teacher at her own studio. A couple of years ago, she started writing for the Hufvudstadsbladet newspaper, as a classical music journalist. Over the years she held music director positions at various churches, and performed as a professional organist.
She conducts two very unique choirs: Furahakören and Kingdom Singers. Furahakören is a Swedish-speaking missions choir, singing songs from all corners of the earth and in many different languages, styles, and rhythms. Founded in 2018, Kingdom Singers is a mixed-voice worship choir with singers of all ages and from many different denominations and cultural backgrounds. Fiona is committed to team-building and to encouraging people of all ages to serve within the local church.
Episode 9
Benjamin Pascal (Pakistan)
Contact :
Website: Unity in Christ Ministry
Email: info (at) unityinchristministry.org
Benjamin Pascal phone: +92 344 2429622
Benjamin Pascal is a worshiper from Karachi, Pakistan. He composes worship songs, sings, and plays the harmonium.
As a blind person, he is an inspiration to others as he completed 3 Masters in Literature, Urdu, and Divinity.
He often travels in conferences as an interpreter and worship leader. He is the principal of a Christian school in Karachi and has the vision of opening a Christian school for blind children with his wife.
Benjamin is a board member of the registered non-profit association Unity in Christ Ministry, in Pakistan.
They are currently going through the first steps of building a church and organize an event every year, “Christmas for the blind” where they host a group of blind people and offer them a Christmas meal and money to buy Christmas gifts for their families such as shoes and clothes.