Long Distance Church

Bayview Glen Church, Toronto, has the corner on the world’s only genuine “cell” group, and that’s the truth!

by Sam Nasser

During the Persian service at Bayview Glen Church in Toronto several months ago, my wife Zorah reported to me that Menu, one of the ladies was always talking on a cell phone during my preaching. I had noticed it too, and it had somewhat disturbed me. Perhaps there was an emergency, I thought. The pattern continued. The next week, there she was on the phone again. Again I ignored it. Finally my wife told me, “If you don’t say something to her, Sam, I will.”

I invited Menu to my office to talk.

“But Pastor! I already told you! My husband in Iran is very interested in how I became a Christian because of listening to you.”

“All well and good,” I said, “but what’s the thing with the cell phone?”

“I bought a calling card ($10 for two hours),” she replied, “and I call my husband in Tehran so he can hear you preaching. He puts the call on the speakerphone so my mother and sister can hear too. They have been inviting other friends and family over, and for the past three months, they have been listening to you preach. More people come every week. I am not talking on the phone. I’m just holding it up so they can hear your message about Jesus!”

The following week, this lady sat at the front of the congregation. After my message on how much Jesus loves us as His treasured children, I asked if there were people who wanted to pray to receive Jesus into their hearts.

“My husband! My husband!” Menu shouted from the second row. “My husband got saved! My mother and sister want to come to the Lord too!”

That’s how I came to be talking on a cell phone to Tehran in the middle of my own service. I prayed with these three people to receive God. Everyone was weeping. Kaveh, Zenet and Paka became new creations in Christ, and we welcomed them into the family of God.

That’s how I came to be talking on a cell phone … in the middle of my own service.

I resumed the service, but after a few minutes, was called back to the phone. Tehran had been suffering from a drought for months, but while these new believers were taking their first steps in faith, it had started to rain there. Menu’s husband, Kaveh was incredulous at this miracle.

Several days later at our church’s Persian Potluck dinner where we served two hundred people, I had the opportunity to give another message about the sanctifying love of Jesus. I invited people to come and invite Him into their hearts. Two more people in Tehran came to faith.

Several days later, I asked Menu: “What is happening?” She smiled.

Apparently Menu’s husband, Kaveh, was concerned that he didn’t have a Bible. Some time ago, I had given a visiting friend from Tehran a Bible in the Farsi language that he had successfully smuggled into Iran when he went home. Kaveh got in touch with my friend, borrowed the Bible and photocopied it. Now everyone in the new church has a copy.

I conclude the story I have to say, not everything is as it appears sometimes—not even cell phone conversations in church.

Sam Nasser is the pastor of an Iranian assembly that meets at Bayview Glen Christian Missionary Alliance Church, Toronto, ON.

Originally published in the Bayview Glen Church newsletter Lifeline, September 2004.

Endnotes: here’s what’s happened since

by Daina Doucet

These events took place in September 2004. As of April, 2005, 53 people in Iran have given their lives to Christ via the cell phone underground by listening to long distance sermons.

On April 9, 2005 three people asked to be baptized. They were ready and waiting to receive prayer and instructions on how to do it via the cell phone. Unfortunately, the Islamic Republic Agency had noted the increasing number of parked cars at that address, and had become suspicious of the activity there. Realizing they must exercise caution, the new believers deferred the baptism.

Iranian believers do not have freedom to worship, explained Pastor Sam. He added: “Please pray for this congregation of Iranians. Their strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ puts tears in my eyes. We are so fortunate to worship without fear in North America.”

Kaveh, who is now the leader of group, has chosen a group of 12 to help him disciple the new house church, and according to Pastor Sam, God is blessing them to grow in maturity and numbers. Pastor Sam will be traveling to Turkey later in 2005 and the group of 12 will join him there for a course on leadership training previously taught at Bayview Glen in Toronto.

Most appropriately, the cell phone listeners have named their new home church “Bayview Glen ‘Cell’ Group.”

“This is just the beginning,” enthused Menu.

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you” (Psalm 139:9-12).