More Afghans, Iranians give their life to Christ with over 200 newly baptized

Churches in Iran are experiencing astonishing growth as more and more Iranians and Afghans come to accept Jesus Christ.

Elam Ministries, which was founded by Iranian church leaders in 1990, reported the baptism of 214 Iranians and Afghans in a country near Iran in late September. Believers from eight different Persian-speaking churches came together to be baptized and share their testimonies of how their lives were transformed by Jesus.

A new believer named Mohammad was suicidal but Jesus intervened. Another man, Morad, shared how he found the truth when he read the third chapter from the book of Romans. One believer also testified, "I never thought I would find freedom from my past, but Jesus has set me free."

Some statisticians have speculated that the Iranian church may be the fastest growing church in the world.

"Twenty years ago, everyone thought there were 2,000-5,000 believers in Iran," Mark Howard, who works with Elam, told God Reports.

The current conservative estimate is that there are between 300,000 to 400,000 Christians in the Islamic republic, according to Howard. Some have estimated that there may be up to one million believers who come from a Muslim background.

"The word that a lot of our senior leadership team has been using recently is momentum, the Lord is really doing something. We see incredible opportunity, reaching Persian speaking refugees in Europe, planting churches in Iran — people are so open right now," he explained.

"Every day we have many coming to the Lord. If you give a starving person food and water they will want to share it. That's what they find in Jesus," he added.

Howard believes that the disillusionment with the Iranian regime has contributed to the growth of the church. He said that people are disconcerted by the violence committed in the name of Islam.

Elam distributes Bibles in key areas frequented by Iranian tourists. The ministry also smuggles Bibles directly into Iran and uses trained leaders to make sure that the scriptures are delivered into the right hands.

Howard mentioned that the ministry started a modern translation of the Bible into Persian in 1994 because the old version was difficult to read. The New Testament was finished in 2003 while the entire Bible was finished in 2014.

Around 1.5 million copies of the New Testament have been distributed while the ministry has printed over 100,000 complete Bibles.