In a city where 70 percent of residents have no spiritual life, the Christian and Missionary Alliance's Envision Berlin team is charting a fresh path for mission through the arts. Since launching the Envision site in 2021, international workers Mike and Elissa Picconatto — together with Stephen and Jennie Jones — have built a ministry centred on creative community, using an art exhibition space to open conversations about faith among Berlin's remarkably diverse population of 170 nations.
Berlin presents a distinctive challenge for Christian mission. While religious backgrounds abound due to the city's international make-up, German society largely views Christianity through the lens of a complicated history. The Church's reputation carries the weight of the Nazi era and other periods of European history, and many Germans today see Christianity as a far-off and irrelevant relic of the past. For the Picconattos, the question became practical: how can people whose lives centre on Jesus establish meaningful community among a population so detached from spiritual beliefs?
Drawing inspiration from Ezekiel 17 — the image of a great cedar where "birds of every kind will nest in it" — the team describes their work as providing "a place where the birds can come," a space of shelter and song where artists and seekers can encounter faith without the baggage of historic church buildings. Local Berlin artists can showcase and discuss their work within a community of creatives, building connections that make spirituality feel plausible rather than foreign. "If there's something meaningful to the people around you, and it's meaningful to you, too, there's a connection made," Elissa Picconatto says. The ministry follows Jesus' incarnational model of dwelling among people, being present, and creating space for the lonely on the outermost fringes of society — a model that, in one of Europe's most secularised cities, is yielding quiet but genuine fruit.
Source: Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA USA) — cmalliance.org
