Missionaries Equip Leaders Amid Iran Regime Crisis

As Iran continues to foment instability in the Middle East, missionaries are calling for a strategy to evangelize the Islamic nation as it currently exists.

“We need to really look at the Iranian regime as it stands now and what that represents more so than some kind of a fleeting, fragile peace deal,” said Greg Kelley of Unknown Nations (formerly World Mission).  “I think that the regime, as it weakens — which there’s no denying that it’s weakening —  that it will all the more lunge out and attack anything that is in opposition to it.”

This puts Iranian Christians in the crosshairs. Unknown Nations partners in Iran requested immediate relocation for up to 500 leaders and their families, which Kelley called short-term protection to prepare for long-term gospel witness in Iran. These Christians “love the Iranian people with a passion,” he said. “They aren’t interested in leaving the country of Iran, but they need to be relocated into places where it’s a little more stable so that they can continue to grow and their ministry can continue.”

Unknown Nations trains Christians such as these with the future in mind.

“Iranians are looking at the religion of Islam through a new lens today, and there’s an openness because of that to the gospel,” he said. “The body of Christ needs to recognize that and lean in. For Unknown Nations, it looks like equipping leaders, the diaspora of the Iranian people, and that involves people groups like the Persian people, who live not only in Iran but in neighboring countries.”

Kelley calls this leadership training a critical strategy, “all the more so now, because the day is coming when Iran will be open, and that void of leadership is going to be a critical time — whether it lasts for a week, a month, a year, two years — for the body of Christ to really lean in and pour into gospel advance in Iran.”

Unknown Nations works with indigenous missionaries to reach barrier-ridden people groups with the Bible. The international organization provides humanitarian relief, plants churches and distributes audio Bibles in areas with where Jesus is completely unknown.

More information is available at www.unknownnations.com.

–Metro Voice