The fastest growing church in the world is in Iran. That’s the assessment of those who have seen and heard the remarkable story of millions turning away from Shiite Islam toward Jesus Christ. The image Iran presents to the world is large demonstrations with shouts of ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’. Those who have seen Iran from the inside, however, paint a very different picture. “You can’t believe the images on TV. For example, all the protests you see on the streets are mostly contrived. They’re young people and they’ve told us if we don’t go to the streets, we won’t get our grades so we’re forced to go and protest,” one church worker said.
The same Church worker says there are two Irans. The one you see on the news and the other hidden from the world. “I would say there’s a 10% Iran and a 90% Iran. Ten percent control the country in a hard-line, religious manner and then the 90% majority of the people, love America. They tell us all the time, we don’t hate Americans, we love America.” He wants us to know that forty years after Iran’s Islamic revolution, there’s another spiritual revolution underway. “More people have come to faith in Iran in the last 40 years than in the previous 1400 years. So in this moment in history we have Iranians coming to faith at a rapid rate.”
Frontiers Alliance International (FAI) is producing a documentary called Sheep Among Wolves to introduce the Iranian church to Christians worldwide. “What’s taking place in Iran is spectacular,” says FAI founder and director Dalton Thomas. “It’s the fastest growing church in the world that owns no buildings, no property, that has no bank accounts; that has no centralized leadership; that has no denominational leaning and yet it’s multiplying like crazy. What the Lord is doing there is staggering.” The evangelism results in intense persecution that Thomas says leads Iranian believers to seek prayer but not in a way you may think.
“We think they want us to pray for the persecution to end and they say, no, don’t do that. Persecution is growing the church. When the persecution stops, the growth stops. Thomas says it’s important to see what’s happening behind the Iranian veil. “When Muslims from Iran come in contact with the Man from Nazareth, something beautiful happens. And when they realize that they have been saved and purchased with Jewish blood; something crazy happens; and that’s what we’re seeing take place in Iran.” Thomas believes one day the world may wake up to find Iran’s church growth in the 21st century rivalling that in China and Korea in the last century.
Source: CBNNews
Print This Post
