Where the church stands in Iran
Iran permits no evangelism, no Persian-language church building, and no conversion from Islam. Believers meet in homes; leaders are regularly arrested and sentenced under national-security charges.
In spite of all of it, the Iranian church is widely reckoned among the fastest-growing anywhere. Estimates of Muslim-background believers run from the high hundreds of thousands into the millions, reached largely through satellite television, Persian-language media, dreams, and Iranians discipling Iranians. The revolution that set out to make Iran more Islamic has produced a generation deeply disillusioned with enforced religion.
Signs of hope
An underground house-church movement growing fast enough to be counted among the fastest-growing churches on earth, led entirely by Iranians.
The honest difficulty
Arrests and long prison sentences for house-church leaders, and no legal way to gather, train or baptise.
What "Frontier" means
The least-reached category: fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus and there is no indigenous Gospel movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people here will never meet a Christian.
In Iran the majority religious context is Islam (~99%). The largest population still considered without meaningful Gospel access is the Persian, Azerbaijani and Kurdish communities.
How to pray for Iran
Prayer is not a substitute for going; it is how going begins. Take one of these for a week rather than all of them for a day.
- Praise God for what He is doing in Iran against every human expectation.
- Pray for imprisoned believers and for the families left behind.
- Ask God to keep multiplying house churches faster than they can be shut down.
- Pray for Iranians meeting Christ through dreams — a reported pattern too common to dismiss.
Questions people ask about Iran
Is Iran an unreached nation?
Iran is classified as frontier. The least-reached category: fewer than 1 in 1,000 follow Jesus and there is no indigenous Gospel movement large enough to grow on its own. Most people here will never meet a Christian. Roughly 0.5% of the population identifies as Christian and about 0.4% as evangelical, with an estimated 83 of its 99 people groups still considered unreached. Figures are rounded estimates and vary by source and year.
How many Christians are there in Iran?
About 0.5% of Iran's roughly 92 million people identify as Christian — approximately 460,000 people. Around 0.4% are evangelical. The largest group still without meaningful Gospel access is the Persian, Azerbaijani and Kurdish communities.
How can I pray for Iran?
Praise God for what He is doing in Iran against every human expectation. Pray for imprisoned believers and for the families left behind. Pick one of these, pray it for two minutes a day for a week, and ask one other person to pray it with you.