“Iran remains one of the worst places in the world for a Christian to live out their faith, preceded only by North Korea and Saudi Arabia,” says Carl Moeller, president and chief executive officer of Open Doors USA. “The abuse of Christians, literally, in the justice system is legendary. Christians do not have the same rights as the other Islamic citizens. They are routinely discriminated against, restricted, and in many cases when they seek to evangelize and disciple, church leaders are arrested, interrogated, tortured and even killed for their faith in Jesus Christ.
“However, the church there is growing incredibly. In Iran there is a revival that maybe is only rivaled by the Chinese revival [of recent years]. Honest, seeking Muslims are having dreams of Jesus Christ.
“Some are being approached by what we can only call angels in parks and being confronted with their personal sins and told they need to come to Jesus Christ. It’s a revival the likes of which we’ve rarely seen in the history of the church. It’s been Holy Spirit-driven through dreams and visions and the technology available to us in the 21st century.”
A longtime missionary to Iran says that “the rate of growth of Christianity in Iran is unprecedented for a Muslim country, especially for Iran. We’ll hear that in a certain city there are 200 house churches, whereas there were none before.”
An underground missionary who works with International Antioch Ministries says the number of people attending his house churches in Iran doubles every six months. Attendance is fueled in part by dreams and healings. “It’s a normal phenomenon that Jesus comes to people in their dreams and witnesses to them or heals them,” he says.
A longtime Presbyterian missionary to Iran agrees, saying that after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, “some would say something happened spiritually in the heavenlies. From that time on Iranians began to have more dreams of Christ.
“They would come to church because they had a dream. Some of them were seeing healings. This awakened their interest in the gospel.”
“These people are persecuted, poor. It’s a danger if someone hears their voices. We teach them to sing really low and clap with two fingers.”
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“Christianity was birthed in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and will only continue as we have this empowering from above. God is always looking for the willing vessels that will trust Him afresh for the impossible.” from: Principles for the gathering of Believers under the Headship of Jesus Christ.Since 2012, a growing group of believers in North America started to warn of coming persecution to western countries. This message was shared in a variety of ways. One of the responses to this was to compile a book taking principles from underground Churches around the world of how they thrived under pressure and persecution. The volume, Principles for the Gathering of Believers, had in a short time over 50,000 downloads in ebook format and much interest was shown. Some new house churches started through this and other existing groups were encouraged.