Muslims turn to Christ through Dreams

Iran’s leading underground church planter tells of a remarkable turn to Christ from Islam by his people. 3,600 churches formed.

A WORLD EXCLUSIVE

The following is an interview with Reza (not his real name), a Christian leader in Iran’s underground church. He is a convert from Islam; one of millions. Tens of thousands of Iranian Muslims who have come to faith in Christ; more accurately, Christ has come to them in dreams, leading them out of the bondage of Islam into the light of Christ.

VOL was able to obtain this exclusive, unprecedented interview through an Anglican missionary serving in the Middle East. For obvious reasons, we cannot reveal their names. The persecution of Christians is a reality, and many Iranians, converts from Islam, are jailed for becoming Christians. Some die in jail.

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virueonline.org

January 10, 2026

VOL: How long have you been doing gospel work?

REZA: I have been doing this Gospel work, church planting and ministry for eight years now. I’m 46 years old.

VOL: Did you grow up in a Muslim family?

REZA:  Yes, my family were serious Muslims, but they didn’t care very much. Now they are all Christians. My home city was strongly Muslim. Some are Sunni but not Shia. I am Kurdish, and we are all Sunni Muslims.

VOL: Tell us about your conversion to Christ, how did you come to faith in Jesus?

REZA: It started a long time ago when I first questioned the Quran on the return of Jesus, known as Prophet Isa. I was told he will return to the world before the Last Day. Muslims believe that Isa will rule for 40 years, then die, and be buried next to Prophet Muhammad. This event is expected to be a sign of the Last Day.  I was not happy with this answer. Then I had a dream. I saw Jesus coming from the sky, and I found out that Jesus is different from what the Quran teaches. When I researched about Jesus, I found out who he really is.  and chose him. On that day, eight years ago, I chose Jesus.

VOL: Would it be fair to say that Jesus chose you?

REZA: Yes. I left Islam, and just parked my faith for four years, doing nothing much; wasting my time in other ways. Then I began to read the Quran. The God of Islam in the Quran would change his words; they were not consistent. It was sometimes yes and sometimes no. In one of the Quranic passages in the Quran God is saying, ‘If people do not believe me, pray for them. But at the end of the Quran, God says, ‘If people do not believe me, kill them.’ And what is written later overrules what was written earlier.

VOL: We are hearing in the United States that something like 2000 Muslims are coming to Jesus every day in Iran. Is that true? Is it a big movement?

REZA: Yes, it is a big movement. A lot of people are having dreams about Jesus.

VOL: What percentage do you think have these dreams that has grown the underground church?

REZA: We are not sure. But we hear a lot about these experiences. They see Jesus as different; they see him as God and Savior. The Quran does not.

VOL: What does Jesus look like to them?  How does he look? Are they scared of him? Or is he nice?

REZA: All the people say they love Jesus because he is so different than what they see in the Quran. They see Transfiguration Jesus. He is bright, He is light and He is love. They see love.

VOL:  What does Jesus tell them? Does he talk to them?

REZA: He talks to them; he shows himself to them.  For me, for example, he showed me that all people are slaves to sin. And that he’s coming to free them; to set them free. I found that Jesus was the only way.

VOL: Is that the same for everyone?

REZA: Many say this is nice, but I need to learn more. Accepting Jesus can happen very quickly when they have a dream encounter, but then they think about it? Dreams make them think about it. Some of them say yes, immediately, I understand it. But for others, they need to go and research it.

VOL: Are there other believers who can help disciple and explain it to them?

REZA: It's not easy in Iran to find a believer. Because it's forbidden in Iran to leave Islam. So it’s more like that you are looking for people who have dreams and you listen to their stories. We are always looking for them.  “Have you had a dream? Do you know someone who has had a dream? Having a Bible in Iran is not easy. We have to be active as disciplers. They don't come to you. You have to go out and find them.

VOL: I understand you're leading a network with over 3600 churches now; is that right?

REZA: Yes, around that figure.

VOL: That's awesome. How many years has it taken you to get there?

REZA: Eight years of hard work.

VOL: And how many generations does that represent?

REZA: More than 10 generations now.

VOL: How is a generation defined?

REZA: A disciple who makes a disciple is one generation. When that disciple, the second generation, makes a disciple, then that person is a third-generation believer. The same goes for churches. When a church plants a church, the new church is generation two. Generations are the best way to measure sustained growth and multiplication.

VOL: We've been told that there are 75,000 mosques in Iran, but 50,000 have closed. Is that true?

REZA: It's true. 100% yes. It happened in a short period of time. Islam is collapsing; the younger generations doesn’t don't care about Islam; the younger ones are the new believers.

VOL: The big question is how do you do evangelism and discipleship in Iran?. What's the best way to go about it?

REZA: We introduce them by telling them how Jesus is the Christ.

VOL: How do you do that?

REZA: We do it online, and we have people inside Iran. They each have people, whom we call them oikos (family and friends), with whom they are close and they just go and share the gospel with them. You help them write out their oikos list, then you train them how to share the gospel. It's that simple, and then you put them right into a group. From the group we will then form a house church.

VOL: What do you hear about America?

REZA: When we hear things from America, we don’t understand, we don’t trust it right away. We have to check; we have to verify. Americans ask a lot of questions, but they're very supportive. I think they want to help, they want to pray, but they just want to know, really, what's going on. They say they are hearing that something big is going on, but they don't know what it looks like. In Iran we don’t have officials, like pastors, or clergy, or bishops; our believers don't go to Bible college, and they're not ordained, they don't wear a clergy collar shirt. We just experience the power of Christ in our lives. We give it a face, and then we just go and share this face with every day, normal people, not anybody special. We don't have Bible colleges or seminaries but we do have a lot of experience with the miracle power of Christ, and we often do not have Bibles.

VOL: Can you get the Bible on your phone?

REZA: Yes, we can. We can physically move some Bibles around, but it's very risky and complicated.

VOL: What do you see is the role now of Western missionaries?

REZA: The old way of doing mission work was for Westerners to come in. They stayed for a long time, and did everything and they ran everything. But now it is different. Westerners come in but they stay off to the side, saying it's your work, your church. We're just friends. It's not ours. We don't run it. We’re not in charge, you are. Westerners come in and help us along the way, but it's our work. Western missionaries just serve and release the work for us to do. It’s a better way to go and more effective.

VOL: How best can Americans help?

REZA: Right now, you can help by supporting the training of people to make them missionaries inside Iran. And then we can send them to lost places. The best job for me is to have you help with the training of our own Iranian missionaries and then go to unreached areas and send them out. It is also good when you come from the other side of the world to really encourage, help and serve us. We appreciate that.

What is hard for Americans is they are so concerned with being busy, busy, busy, and   wanting results, results, results. In our culture, you first have to be friends. We don’t do business first. You have to have a relationship. Nothing is going to happen until you have a relationship. But Americans generally don't want a relationship, they just want results, spreadsheets, reports and numbers, but that’s not why I'm here. The number one thing is relationships. I think it is biblical.

VOL: A lot of American preachers think we are living in the End Times because things look bad, Jesus is about to return. From where you sit, what do you think?

REZA: That might be how some American preachers see it; the world is going to end soon. But it looks to us like God is just getting started. So we have time. We have millions and millions who haven’t heard about Jesus; they don't know Jesus as their Savior. We need to tell everyone. And presently I would like to say we are in the middle of seeing the biggest move of God in history.

When people know Jesus as God and Savior, they will taste his power in their life, and they will just go out and share this faith with people close to them; family and close friends. Most of them will believe. They also see miracles in their lives. That's why the church is growing. Asking Jesus to come back now is very selfish of Westerners. We now have churches in all 31 states. But our new goal is to have a church in all 483 counties. We call them shahristan.

We need time. We start with oikos, and then we find people who have a heart for Jesus and who want to serve Jesus as a missionary. We then deploy them and make a plan to send them to another county.

VOL: Do you think this time of upheaval that people don't care about their lives.

REZA: It is really different this time; people are now willing to die. People are being shot and butchered. They’re willing to pay the cost. But some of the police are also helping the protestors. This is new.

VOL: Are you able to get information out; is it hard to get information from inside Iran?

REZA: They make the Internet so weak it's hard right now, but we still have people there that we can talk to.

VOL: We've heard about the shortage of water. They don't have water in Tehran. Is it very serious?

REZA: Yes, they have a problem with water. It’s been a long time coming. Even though I'm not there, the regime really wants to kill people and destroy all of Iran. The Ayatollahs are the enemy of Iran. Iran is foreign foreign-controlled. Iran is controlled by Russia and others, some of them are Indian, they are not Iranians.

VOL: I’ve never heard that before. Have you ever gotten into trouble personally for following Jesus?

REZA: Yes, I have and so have a lot of people. When they find out we are sharing Jesus with people, they try to take us to jail. I had to leave my city 10 years ago. I skipped away from Iran. I have never gone back.

VOL: Do you and your friends still get into trouble?

REZA: Recently, they took one of my friends inside Iran and put him in jail. They asked him to be a spy to find out who's in the network and who is working with them. Then the regime will take them all to jail. One of my friends needs emergency care. He needs a therapist; he tried to kill himself. I don't know what happened to him in jail. Maybe he has killed himself. The regime is always looking for Christians. They have spies. So, I know some places where we've worked that have many spies in place. It is always dangerous for us. But this doesn’t slow us down. If we meet somebody and they are interested, we don’t share much for the first six months just to make sure that they are okay with us. We watch them for a while. That is why we are slow. We don't open the door for everyone.

VOL: What can Americans do; what would you ask them to pray for? How can they pray for you in your work?

REZA: We want people to know Jesus, for God to touch their hearts. I think this is a prayer that God will answer. A lot of people have a dream about Jesus. When you share Jesus with them, they are interested. So, pray for Jesus to come in dreams and visions.

Western Christians can also help in supporting us, like supporting us to bring some Iranian Believers people who want to serve Jesus. We train them to go back home to make disciples and go on to form house churches.

Now we have lots of people who are forming groups and churches. Over 3,600. They then form small groups. Leaders work full time to support themselves and their families; Many   making time for ministry can be very challenging; they work and they don't have time. Westerners can help to free up local Gospel workers to engage in them for full -time ministry, serving God. And they’re so much less expensive than supporting Western missionaries. Having full full-time local Iranian Gospel workers, gospel workers is our goal. That is the number one thing, along with training.  We bring them across the border, teach them and send them back to evangelize and disciple the next generation.

VOL: What part does the enemy play in all this?

REZA: Sometimes we call out demons and see deliverance. Sometimes it is healing. We grow fast when people see what is happening. We have seen this in 17 states where deliverance has taken place. Our fastest-moving, biggest discipleship stream is heavily involved with deliverance ministry. This is what they are known for.

VOL: Do they have a strong leader?

REZA: We have 25 very strong, big – we call them “apostolic” -- leaders. And more are coming up. But we need to support them. That is our challenge. They don't need anything else, really. The story of Joshua is a favorite theme.

VOL: How do you coach and take care of these churches in Iran?

REZA: Once a month, I call them. I ask, how is everything? How can we help? How can I pray for you? I do all this over the phone. Sometimes we use Google meet.

VOL: Thank you for your time, Reza.

If people want to support Reza and his gospel work, a link is here https://giving.lovefortheleast.org/give/384996/#!/donation/checkout

Or use our mailing address L4L, PO Box 15579, Colorado Springs, CO 80935. Put “Reza” in memo line. Do not put “Iran” anywhere. Homeland Security will intercept.