Monday, January 23, 2006

Perspectives #3

I went to class #3 of Perspectives tonight because D had just gotten home and was too tired to sit in class. I was her official scribe.

It was phenomenal, as usual. I took some notes on the class material, but the speaker, who lived this incredible life in and out of Iran [he was one of the last American missionaries to leave before the revolution in the late 70s] did this whole thing about Iran, which was just nuts. That's the thing about the course, they bring these mission freaks you would never ever meet, and the stories they tell about the Gospel just about bring you to tears.

one couple starts a house church in Tehran 1 year ago
in one year, there are now 28 house churches, 600 believers

If you understand the humor of a culture, you fully understand that culture.

100 million speakers of Persian in the world

Iran - 99.5% Muslim
Christianity has been there since the day of Pentecost
In the 5th century, Iran sent Christian missionaries to China
Islam came and crushed Christianity since then
1860 - 1979 - all Christian witness produced only 3000 Christians in the whole country
1979 - now - growth of over 1M Christians
one person coming to Christ every minute in Iran
over 400 churches in Western Europe are now mosques

difference in the last 25 years?
#1 - The Word of God in Persian
The Bible in the native tongue does miracles
#2 - The Islamic revolution

At the end, a few Iranian Christians were there to share. One young woman got up and told her testimony in Persian - what a beautiful language. The story, writing about it here wouldn't even be right. Anyway, they were from the Iranian Christian Church of DC.

Mission geeking it up.

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