Ep. 324 Lana Silk - Iran's Underground Church: Jesus, Miracles, and Multiplication

What’s really happening in Iran beyond the headlines? In this episode, I sit down with Lana Silk, CEO of Transform Iran, to explore the remarkable growth of the underground church in one of the most spiritually hungry regions in the world. Lana shares her powerful personal story from a childhood shaped by faith under Iran’s Islamic regime to leading a global discipleship movement impacting millions of Iranians today. We talk about how faith flourishes under pressure, what Western Christians can learn from the Iranian church, and why discipleship, sacrifice, and hearing God’s voice are more vital than ever. You’ll also hear miraculous stories of transformation, healing, and courage that will stir your own faith. This is a conversation about radical obedience, contagious hope, and the quiet revolution of love that’s transforming Iran from the inside out.

Lana Silk, Chief Executive Officer, Transform Iran - USA

Lana Silk, daughter of Lazarus and Maggie Yeghnazar, serves as Transform Iran’s Chief Executive Officer. In this role, Lana actively seeks to bring freedom to the people of Iran, transforming the nation into one which bears the image of Christ. Through ministry and humanitarian aid, Lana hopes that Transform Iran will create divine change in the lives of the Iranian people.

Lana currently lives with her husband and three teenage children in Ohio.

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Transcript

Lana Silk: 0:00

And we help them get to know Jesus and overcome the false teachings that they've been taught in the past. So quite often, about maybe three months into that journey, the counselor will call in for a discipleship session, and the person on the other end will say, Look, I've been sharing what you've been telling me with other people, and I hope you don't mind, I've got you on speaker, and there are 30 people in the room, and we all want to know that's growth. You know that's the healthy thing, growing and multiplying. And the churches continue, one turning to 30 in a few months. You can imagine that rate of growth. You

Joshua Johnson: 0:44

Joshua, hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we could make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, when we talk about Iran, the headlines often drown out the heart, but beneath the surface, beyond the politics, beyond the headlines, a quiet movement is reshaping the soul of a nation. It's a movement of faith, of courage, of people, discovering Jesus in house churches, living rooms and prayer gatherings across the country today on shifting culture, I'm joined by Lana silk, CEO of transform Iran. Lana's story begins with a revival in a family home in Tehran, and stretches all the way to a global movement of discipleship and transformation. Raised in a radical Jesus loving family, she's seen firsthand what it looks like to follow Jesus in a place where doing so can cost you everything, and why so many are saying yes. Anyway, this is a story about the fastest growing church in the world. It's about identity, obedience and learning to hear God's voice. It's about transformation that begins one life at a time and multiplies. So join us to hear what it looks like to live faithfully in the midst of pressure, uncertainty and cultural complexity. This is my conversation with Lana silk. Lana, welcome to shifting culture. Thank you so much for joining. Me. Excited to have you on

Unknown: 2:08

Thank you. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I'd love to start

Joshua Johnson: 2:11

out with some of your story, your family story. How did your family start to follow Jesus and where were they in Iran? What did that look like?

Unknown: 2:22

So my father's father had a supernatural encounter with the Lord. He went on a 42 day fast. Was filled with the Holy Spirit, and out of that, he started meetings in his home with the whole family. They had six children. My dad was number five, six years old at the time, and for three years, they met and prayed and worshiped, and they were all filled with the Spirit, and had incredible encounters with the Lord themselves. And out of those meetings, lots of people got saved. It was a real sort of acts experience with people standing outside with doors and windows open, trying to hear what was going on and catch some of what was happening in the room, and it got to a point where it just outgrew the premises, and they had to get a building, and it kept growing from there. So that's the beginning of what is the church in Iran today started with those meetings. So I've grown up in that my mum got saved through those meetings in her preteens. They've both served the Lord their whole lives, and we were brought up in a pretty radical, Jesus loving

Joshua Johnson: 3:21

family. So you you grew up in in faith to find Jesus. This is what you grew up in, in this radical Jesus loving family as you were growing up. And you spent, what the first 10 years in Iran under the regime that's there now, after the fall in 1979 so you spent about 10 years there before you fled. What was following Jesus like at that time? What was the church like?

Unknown: 3:50

Was technically allowed at that time to meet. Now they're not even allowed to meet. So we had a church building. We would go to regular services, we would celebrate Christmas, and all these things are not possible now, but it was monitored and surveyed. As a child, I didn't know the extent of it. Now, as an older woman, I hear the stories about police agents, government agents, coming to the meetings, Quizzing. My dad would have to answer questions, and, you know, deal with the scrutiny. He tells the story of once having agents come to him and saying, Well, you are letting Muslims into your meetings. And my dad would say, No, we're not. Whether everyone in these meetings is a Christian. And they would point to the Iranian Persian descent, you know, but there's an Ali and there's a hassle, and there's a Mohammed, and these guys are not Christians. These guys are Muslims. My dad would say, No, no, they're Christians. Let me show you. Then here we get this out, where it talks about confessing with your mouth and how you have a radical transformation. So these people are Christians. It says in our holy book that they're Christians. And just following the book, even that wouldn't pass now, but you know, it was just the beginnings of just keeping an eye and. Making it harder for people of Muslim background to turn to Jesus. So as a child, I had the tension of that with school, because school was an Islamic system, and we were very heavily indoctrinated at school. Now, children, Christian children, would really have to be careful to keep their identity as Christians quiet. I didn't have to hide that, though I certainly wouldn't go around evangelizing people at school, but you know, they would line us up in the school playground in the morning. They would have us chant Death to America, death to to Israel. They would talk about those sort of ideologies in all of our textbooks. It didn't have to be religion classes. Every subject was infused with some kind of attempt to really brainwash and control the young generation. And of course, that didn't succeed. We can see that now in the way young people have been protesting in the streets. These are people who grew up, as I did, with a sort of a constant barrage of these two countries are created. They can't be trusted. They're the enemy. They're the Satan, you know, the great Satan. But yeah, so that was the sort of tension that I had to walk my mum does tell a story of me standing on the balcony in our apartment in Tehran at sort of seven years old, and preaching to people that were passing by about Jesus and telling them they had to be saved, and she had to drag me inside. You can't do that here.

Joshua Johnson: 6:21

So when you were around 10 or so, you, you fled Iran, you you immigrated, you went somewhere else. Why did you leave? And what was the story there?

Unknown: 6:32

Well, it really was just an act of obedience from my parents. Part, they both felt that God spoke to them in their own quiet times about leaving, they were unsettled by that. Lots of people were leaving. They were in leadership. They wanted to stay and look after the flock. It took them a while to even have the courage to share that with each other and say, look, I think that this is what God is saying. And then after they did that, they thought, Okay, well, let's go and pray some more and make sure. So they took a month to pray and fast and really make sure that hurts straight. And then compare notes again at the end of that month and see what that felt God was saying. And it was the same. So then they took it to the overseen pastor and said, we feel God is telling us we need to leave. He said, you've heard wrong. You we need you here. And they were delighted with our answer. That's what they wanted to do say. But then that night, he had a dream, and God spoke to him and said, No, I need you to release him pretty quickly. So we were working early hours in the morning. No, you're right. You heard right. You need to leave. And so we did. We left very quickly. It was very abrupt. I remember that feeling as a child, just sort of lots of uncertainty, but also then with that, the certainty of knowing God's will, and there's the assurance of knowing that it's only good for us if we obey God's call. After we came out, God spoke to them and told them that the church was going to be driven underground, and they were going to be needed to mobilize the Christians in the diaspora and resource and strengthen and nourish and help grow this about to be very persecuted

Joshua Johnson: 7:57

church. So as you left, you went to England, right? And you So, as you were in England, as you are growing up there, your teenage years, you grew up in Iran, what was an immigrant experience like for you? And how did you find what was your identity shifts like?

Unknown: 8:17

Yeah, do you know what? Very few people ask me that question. It's a great question. And it was, it was tough. It was very tough. I have to say, I found it incredibly unsettling. There are so many things that we don't think about when we move into a different culture. You know, we assume things like the food will be different, you know, the language will be different. But there are so many other subtle things that inform where you sit in society. And when you're a 1011, 1213, year old girl, those things are really hard to get right for a girl that age to you know, be socially accepted, be cool, if you will. And I was anything but cool. The standards of what was cool were quite different. You know, you just, even just dress, how you dress socially, how you dress to someone's birthday party. And things just never crossed our minds ahead of the time. But now I think about so many cringe worthy moments and awkward moments until I sort of found my way again. But God is good,

Joshua Johnson: 9:19

that's true. So you're navigating this, this identity shift, and your parents are saying, we have to work with the Iranian diaspora. Pray for the for the church in Iran. Pray for what's going on. How did that shape your faith, and what did your faith look like because of the continual role your parents played in the Iranian church,

Unknown: 9:47

I am forever grateful for that. My parents were so good at mobilizing people in the kingdom, and people were no one was ever dis. Qualified, whether it was age or background or gender. You know, you all had a role to play. And, you know, years later, somebody asked me, sort of, in my 20s and 30s, I have three sisters, and all four of us are in active ministry and love the Lord. And someone said to me, once you know, what did your parents do? So, right? How come all four of you are so on fire for God. And I'd never really considered it before, and I kind of had to think about it, and I remember the revelation of it when I really got my head around what it was. And I think what they did so well was they engaged us in ministry. The yes was always much louder than the No. My parents never sat us down and said, Don't do this, you know, don't smoke, don't do drugs. You know, we just we never had those conversations, those things were so far removed from our thinking. We were busy with the work of the Kingdom we were serving, and we had a role to play. We caught the vision. We were useful. We were needed. You know, we traveled across Europe those early years and gathered. Well, they gathered, you know, we were children. They gathered the Iranian Christians in all the different countries, in Germany, in Holland and Sweden, in Finland. And we would meet with these different groups and pray together and worship together. And my parents put us to work. You know, you can do the registration, you can lead the worship. You can teach the children. You can go and clean the dorms, you know, whatever you're needed, you know, roll your sleeves up. So there was such a sense of vision and purpose and focus that it really kept us about, you know, about the work of my father. It really was the case. And so before we knew it, we were adults, and really caught up in

Joshua Johnson: 11:37

it. It's so good. And then transformer on which was previously 222, ministries got started to help Iranians there in Iran to find Jesus and to see Iran transformed. I love 222, ministries before he changed the name, because my, my wife and I, we went to the Middle East. And so we were, we were working with Arabs and Syrian refugees and but we called our ministry two cubed based off of Second Timothy two, two. Yeah, same thing. So it's very, very similar. The same thing, both. Second Timothy two, twos is big. So the things you've heard me say, in the presence of many witnesses, teach reliable people will also be able to teach others. And so it's a multiplicative discipleship model set, which I think actually can then transform. Where did that vision of discipleship, giving away leadership, training leaders so that they could lead? Where did that take root?

Unknown: 12:35

That was again, God. You know, as this thing grew and people were gathering together and forming community. They looked to my parents for leadership, and it was a couple years in when they said, Look, you know, there's a lot of us, and we're in like we, let's give it some structure, give it a name, lead us. And so my parents went and prayed about what they should call this movement that was growing very organically. And then God gave them that Scripture. He actually just gave him the three numbers. I believe it was in a dream, 222, and they went digging in the scriptures and found this, and saw the power in it. And everything was built. And still is on that ethos. You know that people, I always say, you know, transformed people, transform nations. You know, we need, we need to invest in the people. Jesus invested in the people that small group that he could really pour into, and those were the reliable men that could be entrusted to them, to each other. So that's really what the whole ministry has been built on. The only reason we changed the name a few years ago was because we were really growing in traction and wanting to build relationships with new people, find new partners. And very a few people were as immediately enlightened as yourself, catching the power of the name. And so we wanted to find a name that would better, really capture the vision, which was about Iran. And that's where we landed on transform Iran.

Joshua Johnson: 14:40

Yeah, and so Iran is is very much in the news this week. Right now. We see Israel bombing Iran. We see Iran bombing Israel. We see us bombing military and nuclear sites of Iran, trying to get into this. This is a crazy time. Just tell us what is going on? What is the state of your of Iran? What is the state of the church? And I think we want to just get a broader, bigger picture of the people who's in charge and what's happening in Iran at the moment.

Unknown: 15:15

So the country is led by Khamenei. Ali Khamenei, who is the supreme leader. This is a lifelong position. He's the second one we've only ever had. The first one was Khomeini, the similar name, which makes it harder for people who took on the initial leadership of the country 1979 when we became an Islamic Republic, and when he passed away, Khamenei took charge. He. He is the final authority on everything. And many would say that really, everyone else is really just a puppet. It's him that makes the call. But there is a very sort of diverse group of bodies in Iran military, political, legal, legal and religious that govern different aspects of Iranian society. And it's a classic theocracy, Shiite Islam. Rule is a rule of the land, and they are very hard line in how they interpret and follow it, and how they demand people in the country will live by it, and the consequences are severe. When they first came into power in 1979 everyone was celebrating brilliant you know, now we're going to go into an age of prosperity, of justice and morality and mercy and purity. And of course, very quickly people realize they got something very different. And it didn't take long for them to grow in despondency and hopelessness and despair. Suicide rates went up, addiction rolls. Mental health is a crisis in Iran. I mean, some of the statistics are staggering, with a number of people that even official government leaders would say, oh, in the number of people who are clinically depressed, I've read even statistics, 90% in some forms, that they would consider that men are clinically depressed. It's really tough environment for people. And so what's happened? My dad was the first though used to say the ayatollahs were some of the best evangelists that Iran ever had. People began to really see Islam for what it was and realize they didn't want it. And as that darkness got thicker and heavier, they began sort of grasping for the light. And as they start looking for light, of course, the Christians very active in Iran, and we'll talk about those. That's the good news side of it. They found Jesus, and now Iranians are turning to Jesus very quickly. So before 1979 you could count maybe three, four, maybe 500 Muslim background believers in Iran. Now Iran is said to be the fastest growing church in the world, and we have well over 1,000,002 some will even say five, maybe more million Christians in Iran today. No one knows for sure, but it's a lot. It's a lot of people who have turned to Jesus and are paying for it. It's dangerous, it's illegal, even the pursuit of it, the exploration, is illegal, but people are so fed up. And really what we've seen more dramatically these last maybe five or so years is yes, people had had enough. They were struggling, but they were still paying lip service to what the government wanted. Of them, more recently, people don't even care anymore. They're brazen in the way they attack the government. They talk negatively about the government. They go openly on social media and criticize the government. When Israel started bombing Iran on the 13th, people were taking to their balconies, raising glasses in salute, throwing fireworks into the sky, throwing parties, celebrating the fact that their government was under attack. So that's the kind of environment. But the good news is that the church is thriving. The church is growing. The church is very strong, very courageous. You know, there's no room for lukewarm Christianity in an environment like that. You realize what you're signing up for, and you're all in and that is a gift that you have in a persecuted environment. It's a challenge for us in a free context to make sure that we nurture in our hearts that same kind of attitude, even though we are free, because all of us are called to be completely sold out and dying to self for the gospel. And you know, when you're in an environment like Iran, that happens quite naturally. It's forced on you, and the church is really alive and well, and especially now, when there's increasing unrest and fear, you know, there is celebration on one hand, because they want free from their government, but there's real fear. You know, there's they're under attack, they're dislocated. There's a lot of evacuation that's happening. There's a shortage of food and water and electricity, there are internet blackouts. There are some immediate consequences to living in that kind of environment. And it's the church that gets to be the voice of hope in that time.

Joshua Johnson: 19:51

It's a really hard thing where you're living under an oppressive regime, you want some regime change. You want something different, to find some freedom. Jesus is meeting people all over the place. You have some something like Israel starting to bomb the the regime, and people are celebrating. You have others in the country that don't want this at all. They want a still, Death to America and death to Iran, or, I mean, Israel, I'm sorry. And then it's just a it's really just a mix and a hard thing to figure out, like, where is some peace? And you know, if the news reports are true today, of three people were drawn out into the street and executed and killed because they thought they were spies for Israel. There could be even more. More of a crackdown from the regime into what's happening in Iran. What Should Christians response be in the middle of this crazy time, what should we be doing? What should be praying for? How should we respond?

Unknown: 20:57

I think we have to be careful as Christians, to remember that perfect love casts out all fear, and Jesus has told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. I think those are the two scriptures that I see sometimes missing when I look at what happens on social media, when Christians look at situations like this and get fearful and speak out of a spirit of fear, and then that leads to judgment and prejudice. And you know, judgment is the Lord's. And even the leaders of Iran, no matter how horrible their acts have been, they are loved by Jesus. He died for them, and we mustn't sight of that. So I feel like we can leave the judgment to God, and we can leave all of that, that side, the ugly side of it to God to deal with, and we just need to make sure that our hearts are checked to be full of love and compassion and to be praying for everyone involved. So we pray, I kind of group them in three in my mind. We, of course, pray for the Christians. We pray for them to continue to be courageous and strong, to be a light in the darkness, to be a roadmap to Jesus. For people who are so very lost right now and worried about what the future might hold, we pray for the lost. We pray that they will find Jesus. You know, Jesus himself is perfectly capable of revealing himself to people, and he demonstrates that all the time in the Middle East, I'm sure you're well aware of the dreams and visions that happen across that region, and the Iran is it happens all the time. Iranians are reporting about Jesus appearing to them, healing them, restoring relationships, marriages, families, freeing them from addictions, healing them from diseases. And then they want to know more. They don't even know that he's God at that point they just encountered so let's pray that more and more of that happens. Pray that people find him in this difficult time, and let's pray also for the leaders of Iran. I often say I would love to see peace through repentance over peace through force. Wouldn't it be incredible if tonight, Khamenei has a dream and Jesus appears to him and shakes him and tells him who he is and reveals himself in a real Damascus Road conversion. You know, God is capable of that. He's shown that in the past and in more recent history as well. Let's pray for the real perpetrators to find Jesus. So that's how I would encourage the church to respond.

Joshua Johnson: 23:16

I think that's that's fantastic. You know, we have the, we have an Iranian church in Europe that we're really connected with and our ministry and a lot of the people in Europe are worried for their their friends and their family that are back there. It's been hard to communicate with them. It is a mix of celebration and fear and worry. And so when you say, you know perfect love casts out fear that we're praying for those who persecute us. How do we start to to live faithfully to Jesus? What is a like just an everyday living faithfully when there are powers and principalities and things that are happening and swirling in the atmosphere. What does it look like for us, for all of us, to live faithfully to Jesus, step by step during the day?

Unknown: 24:12

I think you had the key there in the step by step. You know, we don't need to have the whole picture. We don't need to see even understand all that's happening, but just that immediate response right now, today, where is my heart? What is my attitude? And I often use the phrase, Jesus, will you be my fill in the bank blank right now, whether it's peace or joy or hope, you know, you know, just in everyday choices and decisions that we're making, and as we see, the spirit of fear or anything else that we know is not rooted in in Jesus, rooted in the Gospel coming out of us. And that's the time to catch it, nip it in the bud, and ask Jesus to give us the antidote. So then that's when awareness of Scripture helps. Like for you know, we've quoted that scripture a few times perfect love casts out or fear. So if I know that the antidote to fear is love, then as I'm feeling fearful, then that's the opportunity for me to invite the Lord to come and fill my heart with love and the people that I'm afraid of, maybe he can give me a different filter to actually feel compassion for them and love for them, and that will allow me to pray for them and not be afraid of them because they're broken people from making terrible choices. And ultimately, God is sovereign, and my hand, my life, is in his hands, I think, for all of it. You know, we, we talk about entitlement and gratitude. You know, when there's as that entitlement rears its head, and we that's a real Western vice for us. You know that we do certain things and that even. Into things like freedom and access to things. You know, the voice that we want to have. You know, this is my right, that kind of language. Well, actually, the antidote to that is a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness for what I do already have, even if it's just my salvation that in that moment I want to thank God for. So, yeah, not overthinking the whole thing, just in that moment. God, what Where does my heart need to be right now, and inviting him to lead my thoughts

Joshua Johnson: 26:05

so as you're working with transformer Iran, you're based in the West, in America, you're working with your own people, your own people group in Iran, what are you learning from people who are are living there with in the church under this regime, what are you learning? Taking back into your life?

Unknown: 26:30

Oh, they inspire me all the time. So a few different things. One is passion, really just the fire of God in my life. You know, when I'm in prayer meetings with my colleagues. I've, you know, I've been in prayer meetings in the West, where you can hear a pin drop and no one wants to say anything. There's no switchingly away. It is just such an overflow. Everyone has so much love to pour out Jesus and so much fire. And it's not contagious, and it reminds me of that intensity of emotion that I want to preserve, and how I feel about Jesus, how much I love him, how much I how grateful I am to Him for what He has done for me in the life that I get to live. So they're inspiring me in that way, and then also the spirit of sacrifice. You know, Christianity in Iran is costly, but I never speak to not once have I spoken to a Christian in Iran who has begrudgingly paid a price for their faith. They consider it a privilege and a joy, and they reap the reward of it in the intimacy that they enjoy with the Lord and the way they get to walk in the supernatural. You know, my mom often says that the supernatural only really happens if we need it. You know, I don't my version of that is I don't need his help to tie my shoelaces. If I'm going to live a really normal life that's all safe and comfortable, then I'm not going to have the thrill of the ride that my friends and colleagues have in Iran. But when I'm wanting to sacrifice and obey, lay everything down and put myself in places that a high risk and only he. Now I'm dependent. Then, God, if you don't come through, then I'm in trouble here. No situation. God gets to really show up and show off, as I've heard say a lot, and I love that. So giving him those opportunities, but first I've got to be willing to sacrifice something. So that's a that's a challenge

Joshua Johnson: 28:19

too. Yeah, it seems like when, when people are in that situation, and you know, the church is underground, you say we actually have to rely on the voice of God really deeply. We have to be intimately involved to be able to hear him. It seems like that is your story. That's your your family's story is that you hear from God and you obey. I think the church in the West needs a little bit of that saying that we hear from God and we obey Him like right away, like that. That's it. So give me a story from from your life, like when you heard God, when you thought, Man, this is scary, but this is, this is God. This is him speaking. How did you obey Him, and how did it turn out differently than maybe you even thought,

Unknown: 29:05

oh, you know, I have, I am privileged and humbled to say that I have multiple stories like that where God has really just been so kind in revealing his purposes to me. I made a decision when I was trying to choose my college and my career path that I wouldn't make any life altering decisions without prophetic confirmation. I really needed to know that God was in the path that I was setting myself on, and he spoke to me prophetically about where I should go and what I should study. And then when I fell in love with my husband, we had a very frank conversation before we fell in love, and where we talked about the future, and we were both of the same mind that we were not going to allow our emotions to lead our decisions. And you know, we knew that it was possible to fall in love and then everything is just wonderful. But we wanted to make sure that God had decided who we would marry. So we fasted together every Wednesday through our dating just seeking the Lord for him to show us from his perspective, whether we were the mate that he we had chosen for each other. And that's a whole other story. He we both have wonderful personal stories about where he revealed his will to us and how we were right for each other. And it just went from there, every house we bought, every church we joined, every job we took. It was, Lord, what do you want? But in most cases, it wasn't a costly decision. The first costly decision was when he relocated us so we had two young children, a four year old, a two year old, and I was pregnant, and I'd already picked up the school that my older boy would go to. My mum and dad lived just. 10 minutes from our house, like everything is lined up, you know, I figured I would live my whole life in that town. And then my husband's an excellent engineer. He gets headhunted very regularly. And he was headhunted for a role, and he said, you know, he they kept calling him and upping the offer and wanting him to go and interview. And he kept saying no, and he loved his job, he wasn't interested in moving on, and he just started feeling a tugging in his spirit. And he said, I think I might just go and explore a little bit. And I thought, what if I let him go explore? I remember my mom in law talking to me about it, saying, so how do you feel about moving? I said, we're not moving. God's not said anything. He's just exploring. And then Famous last words, he came back to me a couple of interviews in and said, mana, I really like the sound of this job. And I remember saying to him, Well, you know, you can't take it, because God's not said anything. So nothing's happening. There's been no word. And he said, No, I know that's true, but we really need to, we need to seek God on this and that was early days for Facebook for me, but I remember thinking, how am I going to hit a lot of prophetic Christians in one go? And nobody knew that any of this was going on. You know, of course, he's being head hunted, but you keep it quiet. So I went on Facebook and I just put a status up there, and I put Lana needs to hear God. Anyone got a word? I just had, I had some very funny responses. One of them was about friends. It was a pastor saying, The Lord is saying, You need to have dinner with us. And then he obviously felt convicted, because then he went off to pray, and I'm probably gonna cry as I finish the story, go and prayed. And then he sent us a message afterwards, and I remember it so clearly, because we were in the worship team. My husband was leading the worship industry. I was in the team. We were in the middle of a practice, and my phone pinged, and I thought, I don't know why. I just thought, I need to check it. And I played sax. I literally was sitting outside the room with my sax on my lap, on my phone. I couldn't remember looking at it, and it just said, My friend said I felt really bad for making a joke about it. You're obviously seeking God for something. So I went and prayed. And I don't know what it is that you're seeking God on, but I feel he's saying you need to go, and I'm gonna go with you. And I remember just the disappointment. Wrong answer, oh no, but you know at the same time, knowing, well, that's it. I don't want to be anywhere else. And it was funny, because before that, as I was digging into the scriptures, every every scripture that I found was like, the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Like it was all we are in the right place. Everything is and then this came, and then everything in my devotion was the pillar of fire is moving, and it was like somebody is leading me into all different verses. So that was tough. That was a really tough move for us. We didn't know anyone. My husband had a fantastic job. His colleagues were saying to me him, are you crazy? You're moving your pregnant wife and your two children to an uncertain job. You know, first in last, last in, first out, like you, you there's no certainty for you there. You don't know anyone there. And he would say, but the risk is not obeying God, the bigger, the bigger cost to me, is to step out of God's will. So we went, and it was really hard, and I cried the whole way, but at the same time, I knew I didn't want to be anywhere else. I wanted to be in God. You know, God blessed us so much in that place. It was such a time of fruitfulness for us. That's where we formed some of the best friends we've ever had. We end up planting the church there and then about 10 years in the same upheaval again, and the same exact story again, with prophetic confirmation. Here we are in Ohio, and another tough move. Didn't know anyone. And then there was the cultural relocation, and I've been through that once before. But God is so good, and every time we've stepped out, we've felt the upgrade in our relationship with Him, the upgrade in our fruitfulness, in our ability to hear him. And I'm so grateful that our children have been on that journey from the beginning, and they know so well. So I was jokingly saying to my 13 year old a little while ago, the shopping where we live is terrible. And I was saying, when you finish high school, I wouldn't I would like to move somewhere when we have better access. And she said, Mom, how can you possibly speak that way? You've been brought here on assignment, and the Lord hasn't released you.

Joshua Johnson: 35:11

Now you got a 13 year old on your back and so and reminding you, like, listen to God, let him speak. But we do have desires, and we have things, and sometimes God puts those desires in our hearts, and then we bring them to him. Is this right? Is this from you? Where are we going? And so maybe you will move to a better place, where you have some closer to shopping,

Unknown: 35:35

another culture shop, somewhere else.

Joshua Johnson: 35:37

Yes, that's right. So. So what are you doing now? What does it look like to be in Ohio and then have ministry in Iran? What is transformer Iran doing? And what does it look like on the ground? And what does it look like where you are?

Unknown: 35:56

Well, where I am. It's our sort of immediate, sort of Judea, as it were, of our ministry, and our family is not related to transform Iran. We're planted in a church. And you know, doing our best to be a good servant to the Lord here and a positive impact. You know, we always say to the children, and I guess preaching to ourselves, that every person that we meet and every place that we live has to be better off because we were there. We are salt and light, so we want to make sure that that is our impact in the community here, and we're beginning to see signs of some of the reasons that God might have brought us here, and ways in which we can be a blessing to the people here. But work wise, it's all just digital connection. For me, I spend a lot of time on Zoom and on voice calls and video calls with my colleagues in Europe and in Turkey. I don't speak directly with our team in Iran. We're very careful to really limit the channels of communication with who they would speak to directly out of Iran for their own safety, or we have conduits for those but, you know, things get forwarded and we're we're in touch with what's happening on the ground. So my day to day really is in making sure that we are being good stewards of the funds that we have received. Our partnerships are blessed, that those are working with us are aware of how much we value them, and really know that they are part of what's happening when we look for relationships, rather than sort of transactional contacts with people. We want people to be part of our ministry. We understand the CO dependence between the funder and the prayer and the doer, like we're all needing each other to get this done. That's my favorite part of my role. And then I get involved in some sort of strategic decision making and project planning and budgeting and that kind of thing. So I enjoyed. It's a nice mix.

Joshua Johnson: 37:42

So earlier, you did say that Iran is really the fastest growing church in the world. That's Jesus is showing up in incredible ways and meeting people. How is the church multiplying? What does it look like, practically, for it to actually grow and expand to be the fastest growing church. How does it multiply?

Unknown: 38:07

Well, I think it multiplies probably in the way that the church was originally designed to, and that's just natural, organic, spontaneous growth. People come to know Jesus. They are exploding with the joy of this life that they have found, and they cannot contain themselves. Sometimes it's just a verbal communication, and we'll be very often in those cases, have to temper them and help them to be wise, because they're so excited they're like wild children in a, you know, candy store. We have said, Okay, hang on. There's a there's a wise way to do this, a way that means you can do it for more than just one day, and other times it's just the evidence of the work of God in their lives. So people will come to them and say, What happened to you? You know you're not behaving this way anymore. You've lost this element of your character, or you've gained this element in your character. We had a Muslim cleric that turned to the Lord. His testimony is on our website, and he was sharing about how the other mullahs in the mosque were talking about how his countenance had changed, and he just literally looked different. He was so full of peace and joy, people are gravitating to light. Then they are themselves being transformed. And when people get saved through our ministry, we invite them on a discipleship journey. So we have a weekly contact that we'll make with them, and we'll go through a whole curriculum that we built that's been tailored very much to their specific sort of socio political, religious environment and the background that they come out of, and we help them get to know Jesus and overcome the false teachings that they've been taught in the past. So quite often, about maybe three months into that journey, the counselor will call in for a discipleship session, and the person on the other end will say, Look, I've been sharing what you've been telling me with other people, and I hope you don't mind, I've got you on speaker, and there are 30 people in the room, and we all want to know that's growth. You know, that's the healthy thing, growing and multiplying. And the churches continue, one turning to 30 in a few months. You can imagine that rate of growth.

Joshua Johnson: 40:05

It's amazing to be able to see that, that spontaneous growth. Do you have a story of of somebody that is just would say yes to Jesus, obey Jesus radically in Iran? And what happened? Well,

Unknown: 40:20

it's, it's hard to choose, but the one that came to my mind is the one that I'll just go with. This is a gentleman in our ministry now who leads our training and technology for Bible translation. He was a, not he, I don't know if he would have called himself an atheist, but he wasn't a following follower of Islam in Iran and alcohol. Holic, very in his own words, self, sort of independent, confident of himself, even perhaps proud individual. And he would drink a lot and behave terribly, and it was really damaging his marriage. His wife was getting ready to leave him, and in that sort of at that time, he was also thinking he had young children, and he thought, I need to get my kids out of this country. There's no future for them here. And a friend of his said to him, Look, if you want to get out of Iran, the only way you're going to manage it is to pretend you're a Christian and tell them that you need asylum, because they're not going to accept you otherwise. But you better do your homework, because they're going to ask you lots of questions. So he gets hold of a Bible and starts to do his research so that he can convince the authorities that he really is a Christian and needs asylum. And when he shares his testimony he is, he just, he's always just an emotional wreck talking about the words of Jesus and how they captured him. He says, these were words of love. These were words of forgiveness. I had not heard words like this before, I had looked for this and not found him, and it completely captured his heart, and it changed him. By this point, his wife absolutely hated him, and she was ready to leave him. So when he went to share the what he had found with her, she rejected it, just on account of the fact that it was from him. But then his life transformation told a different story, and noticed that he didn't want to drink anymore. He said, immediately, as I surrendered to Jesus, it was like any desire for alcohol was uprooted out of me. As his wife began to see that she got interested, and she read the Bible, and she got saved, and then the children read it, and they were saved. And his old friends used to try to get him back to the parties, because he was the life and soul, you know, he would his behavior was entertaining and he was not interested. And no matter what he said, they would try to get him to go. So he said to his wife, you know what, let's just go once and let them see that I am not the same man anymore. So he went to one of these parties, and his friends were trying to get him drunk. So they would pour him two shots of whiskey, I guess, or vodka, and take the one themselves to try to accelerate his intoxication. And he said he he felt that it was okay to drink it. He went to drink it, and he could taste it as he drank it, it turned to water. So he Jesus did a reverse miracle for him. And they changed the alcohol into water, and so he just, he kept drinking, and it was nothing. And his friends were so frustrated, and he was able to share the gospel with them and say, Look, this, this is totally gone for me. Like God, it's nothing to me. Now. Anyway, they eventually did immigrate out of the country, and as Christian refugees, established a ministry amongst couples and alcoholics. You know, with their background, he would go back and forth to Iran and minister to the alcoholics and drug addicts. And the last time that he was going to go back, he had a sense of premonition. So we were praying really ardently. And as he prayed, he had a vision of a room that he was standing in, and the room, he said, was a very distinct green color on the walls, and he could see angels standing 10 times taller than the walls of these buildings, fiery, powerful angels standing guard around this room. And he took that as a sign that God was telling him it was safe, that he could go. He went in peace. He went. He ministered lots of Holy Spirit, leading changing locations, lots more miracles. I don't have time to get into with you now. And right after the last session, the authorities broke into the room and arrested him, and they put a cover over their heads when they arrest them, disorient them, driven through town and took him to prison. Covers over his head the whole time. Can't see anything, just tough integration into prison. They strip, search them, they humiliate them. And they finally took him to his room. And when he got put in his room and he got put to sit down, the covers were lifted, and it was that same room with those same green walls, and he just had such a powerful moment when he realized that God had seen the arrest, and he was reminding him that his angels would be standing guard around him there in prison. And his testimony is seven or eight pages long. He goes on to share about the things that God did for him in that prison cell. He was in solitary confinement for almost two weeks, I think, and just the encounter he had with the Lord and the things that God revealed to him, and so many miracles around his release. But I'll just tell you one I'm sure we're running out of time. My favorite is when he came back, finally, back to Europe and with his wife, and sharing stories of what God was saying to them at this time. And there are about 40 things that they were both praying for, almost completely aligned. But God had answered every prayer but one was unique to hers, and it was that the Lord would illuminate his prison cell because she had learned heard that there were dark in those rooms, and she didn't want him sitting in darkness for long periods. And he laughed, and he said, That was you. So he said the room was so bright that he couldn't he had to sleep with a towel over his eyes because it was just so bright he couldn't sleep. It was 24/7 illuminated, and he actually had to call a garden and say, Can you please turn the lights off, at least at night? And the guard looked at the room and said, What lights?

Joshua Johnson: 46:00

Amazing. There's, there's a couple things. One, I think that an escalation of what's happening now might lead to more diaspora of Iranians somewhere out there. There's a lot of ministry that could be had. So as things transform there, we have to be ready and be aware of what's going to happen. Be able to receive people that will become refugees or so there might be something that's that's actually happening, but we want to pray that Iran is transformed. Yeah. So for you, what's your vision? What is a transformed Iran looks like? And how can we get involved in it?

Unknown: 46:43

Well, I like look at the original land of Iran, Persia, that we read about in the Old Testament, and I see how the Persian rulers bless the people of God. They offered them protection. They offered them opportunity to go worship. They made provision for that. I mean, King Cyrus funded the rebuilding of the temple. We talk about the kings and Darius and ectors Exodus, who made sure the reading of the law was happening and continue to fund the finishing of the building of the temple. The Persian rulers were not believers, but they blessed the Jewish people. And so for me, that's the that's the people of God. You know, they bless them and ensure that they were able to worship God. And I think that is a precursor to what Iran is supposed to be. And I think that is why there is such a heavy fight on for Iran today, because the powers of darkness are afraid of what is going to come out of Iran, and the positive force that Iran is going to be across that region, and they're fighting tooth and nail to derail Iran from her destiny, but Iran is going to be a blessing again, not only to her own people, but to that whole region, and to the people of God, to the Israelites. Iran is going to be a sending nation for missionaries. Again, we know in the early church, missionaries were sent out of Iran. That is the call of God on Iran, and Iran is an influencer. So when Iran changes, there is going to be a domino effect, and there'll be other nations that will be positive, to be infected when they see what God has done in Iran. So that's what I see, that's what I expect, and that's what I'm praying for,

Joshua Johnson: 48:18

amen, let's see that happen. Let's pray that that happens. Stand with the people of Iran as they're walking through some horrific things at the moment, but God is moving. And the faith that you have and the faith for the people of Iran is inspiring. It's inspiring to me. I think it's gonna be inspiring to a lot of people as we're walking with a faith that says God speak and we will obey and we will listen, that no matter what, we can follow Jesus in these times, in these days. So really, thank you for for that and thinking. So how can people connect more with you. How can people connect more with transformer Iran? Where would you like to point people

Unknown: 49:06

to to our website, TRANSFORM iran.com? You can sign up to our newsletter, and then you'll get prayer points and testimonies and really get on this adventure with us and see what God is doing. It goes monthly, so I really encourage you to do that. I believe it will be an encouragement to you. And then we encourage people also to follow us on social media. We're on all the main social media platforms, go and follow us and like and share the post and help us get the word out there. You know that there's two purposes to that. One is, of course, we need help, and we're looking for people who will pray for us and help fund the ministry as it grows. But we're also looking to be an encouragement. You know, we talked a little bit earlier about not knowing what's really happening and how fear can take root. When you know what's really happening, then you're encouraged and strengthened, and actually, faith then takes root. So we want to be that encouragement to the west and show them what God is really doing in the country of Iran.

Joshua Johnson: 49:59

And so if we look at the cycles of violence and vengeance that happen over and over and over again in this world. We always want to stop this local regime or this local thing. I think we need to actually look a little bit more upstream and say that there is something happening with the powers and principalities that we know, that there is a cosmic war and battle that is happening there, and so as we're looking at that, there's also a spiritual reality that we need to step into and walk into as we're in solidarity with people across the world and right now, especially with people in Iran, it's. So. Lana, thank you for this conversation. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed connecting with you, speak with you, and you know, my heart is is going out to the people of Iran at the moment of what they're going through. And I'm, I am thankful that there are a lot of people that have met Jesus, that can share the love of Jesus, and hopefully we could see more and more people in Iran embody Jesus, look like him, and know what it is to follow him in a way, so that we could actually see Iran transformed, and because of that, we could see the whole region transformed and many nations transformed as people are sent out from there. So thank you. It was fantastic. Applause. Connecting session you.