Christian ministry to Iran reports vibrant underground church amid persecution

The Pathway ^ | Aug 13, 2025 | Diana Chandler

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Amir, an underground church leader in Iran, told Iran Alive Ministries of being stopped at a police checkpoint with dozens of Bibles in tow, a crime punishable by imprisonment and death.

Police confiscated the Bibles but let Amir go free. When he arrived the next evening at the house church that expected the Bibles, the books were already there, delivered by none other than the police official who had confiscated them.

“He (the police official) divulged that he is a Christian,” Iran Alive Ministries founder Hormoz Shariat told Baptist Press of the event that happened earlier this year. “And he said, ‘Look at the table. The books I got from you yesterday are on the table and they are being handed to the house church members.’”

Christians are often found in unexpected places in Iran, Shariat said, supporting his estimate of at least 2 million Christian converts from Islam there, more than twice as many estimated by others tracking such data.

“I give a number and I get criticized by both sides. But the number I give is about 2 million Muslim-background believers. I give this number in the West and some people say, ‘Really? Don’t you think you’re exaggerating?”

Iran Alive’s estimate of 2 million converts is more than twice that of other groups that estimate between 500,000 and 800,000 Christian converts there, according to the most recent (2023) U.S. State Department Report on International Religious Freedom and the Open Doors 2025 World Watch List.

But house church leaders in Iran believe 2 million is too low.

“They say, ‘Why do you downplay what God is doing in Iran? …So when I give 2 million, there are people inside Iran, they say it’s more. It’s more than that.”

[xp38]

The Lord works in many ways unknown to us but it is glorious.

[Deaf Smith]

Had a missionary couple (husband/wife) talk to our Sunday school class three weeks ago. They mostly work in the “stans” and others work in the middle east.

The “stans” mostly still operate as communist countries and still have a form of kgb.

Bibles are a big No for having/ possessing and equal prison.

The solution is a phone app of the Bible that loads into the language of the country the group of missionaries are in.

If a security group grabs a person’s phone and discovers that Bible app, that is prison time for that person.

Solution; have the face of the Bible app presented as a calculator. The Bible app as a calculator can only be opened if a code is entered in a specific method and can be closed pressing one key if being approached by a government operative and becomes a calculator.

The couple is also undercover and have a business cover with a web site since they are black and do not exactly fit with the demographics of the “stans”.

So far, they have been detained only once and for just a few hours.

[MacNaughton]

"Delivering the Whole Gospel to the World: Celebrating 15 Years of the Navigator"

I recall news reports from AUG 2021 during the devastating Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan that the Taliban were searching homes in Kabul to seize these devices.

[Deaf Smith]

Difference given by the missionary couple was that the economy worked by phone banking for daily transactions, thus everyone had a cell phone.

Not sure if text only or was also audio. From what they were saying, appeared to be Bible in text.

[ViLaLuz]

Loving Lord, we live in an evil world and know that You are coming back soon for Your Church. Be with all those who are suffering persecution at the hands of so many that would destroy the truth of Your Word.

Help every man and woman, boy and girl that is going through some form of persecution today. May You guard and guide and encourage each one, no matter where they are.

Give them the strength to remain firm in their faith, despite any physical, emotion or psychological pain they may have to endure for the sake of Jesus Christ. Protect and keep each one from harm and danger that stalks their path. Hide them under the shadow of Your wing, and support and strengthen them in the ordeals that they will be subjected to.

Let Your peace and joy and love reign in their hearts, and help them to walk humbly before You, as they identify with the sufferings that the Lord Jesus endured for them. And Father, may their lives, and possibly their deaths, be a fruitful witness. May the seed of Your love be planted in the hearts of their persecutors, so that their life may produce much fruit. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Source: https://prayer.knowing-jesus.com/prayer/prayer-for-individual-persecuted-christians-569

[imardmd1]

Evangelism has been active in Persia for over a hundred years.And to stay alive, many Persians simply had to leave the country or be murdered for the depth of their conviction that it is only the true God's Son, the Jesus of the Bible, saves a person from such monstrous Satanic lies as Mohammad's fake picture of God.

I once was counseled by an escaped Persian in forming a local assembly here, which can also come under a degree of persecution anywhere in America, a gathering which refuses denomonationalism of any kind; Baptist, "Plymouth Brethren," any independent autonomous Bible-preaching immersionist regularly meeting gathering overseen by a plurality of spiritually regenerated elders mature in the Doctrime of the Apostles; to wit, a true New Testament assembly of people responding to the promise of John 3:16.

Now, the desires of my elderly friend and counselor of the 1970s, born in Persia but resident in America. are finally coming true for a country that has seen the full force of Islam's rejection of an individual's God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a Christian society.

Apparently, a large number of residents, lawful or otherwise, need to relearn what it is to be the kind of American that our Founding Forefathers (and Mothers) sacrificed to gain our freedom that we still enjoy. But soon it will be fully taken away if we allow foreign religions and philosophies to overcome our inheritance of the results from the labors of our forefathers.

WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS LEST IT INFECT EVERYONE. TOLERAMCE IS NOT THE AMSWER!