Dr. Hormoz Shariat
THE MAN WITH A PLAN TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
There aren’t many pastors that can claim to be experts in artificial intelligence, but Hormoz Shariat is far from average. iBelieve spoke to the man with a plan to make a difference in Iran…
Dr. Hormoz Shariat is perhaps the most unlikely candidate you could ever have met for Christian ministry. Brought up as a Muslim, he found himself disenchanted with the religion of his youth and leant into science instead, embracing all that his education in electrical engineering was saying to him.
Now, though, he leads a church plantJing organisation (Iran Alive Ministries) and 124/7 Satellite Broadcast to the Middle East, Europe and North Africa.
“I was born and raised as a Muslim,” he explains. “I was pretty devout until my teenage years which was when I started i think that completing the rituals didn’t lake sense and was empty. I didn’t have any relationship with God. I just quit the rituals and pursued science. “Then, I was finishing my degree during the Iranian revolution and I thought, ‘Maybe I should look again at Islam? Maybe I’m missing something?’ I studied the Qur’an le more time and I realised that there was some truth in it but it didn’t satisfy my soul.
“I got a Bible, and I didn’t expect to find anything new. I thought I’d read it in a few days!I read Genesis and then started Matthew. I realised Jesus was not who Islam said he was. It took me three months get to Matthew chapter five because every sentence was a challenge to who I thought Jesus was.”
It was only when confronted by the similarity between the Bible and the Qur’an that Dr Hormoz realised just how divergent the two religions were. I struggled with deciding which one was true and I started going to a church. I heard the gospel. I heard how simple the message of the gospel is and I received Christ. My life was changed, and that’s how I came to Christ.”
Brought to the USA to complete his PhD in computer engineering, Dr Hormoz found himself a world away from the on-going Iranian revolution and surrounded by the best and brightest minds chipping ‘at the problem of artificial intelligence. “Many in that field are Christians,” he adds. “The more you understand the human brain, the more you realise it is not just chemical and electrical interaction; there is something supernatural!”
Internally, though, Dr Hormoz was undergoing his own revolution.
“My life was changed so much. It was dramatically altered from the inside. The emptiness I had, and my search for God was finished. There’s something supernatural living inside of me and changing me.
“As an engineer, I wanted something that worked practically. I was not looking for poetry! I had high standards and the gospel works – it transformed my life and I have seen it transform the lives of many others. I just feel it would be selfish not to share it when it’s made such a difference in my life.
“I started sharing the gospel with others in the beginning. I started planting churches as I was doing my scientific research. The churches grew, and I felt called to pastor the mother church. I became a pastor after years of doing research!”
Although considering the complexities of electrical circuitry in a bid to make a synthetic brain might not strike you as the best prepa¬ration for ministry, God began to use Dr. Hormoz to make a difference. The vision was never just local, though.
“I planted the church in our home, with only three people; myself, my wife and a lady,” he remembers. “But I felt the Lord telling me even then, ‘I’m going to do a great work in Iran and I’m giving you the honour of being a part of it.’ That was a message I felt every time I prayed, so I’ve always had a vision for Iran. It was always there for many years, as a promise.”
That dream has begun to become a reality in recent times. For the past eleven years, Dr Hormoz has been broadcasting Christian television programmes into Iran and other countries in the Middle East.
“We are seeing Iran being saved according to Jeremiah 49:38 before our eyes. It is happening. It’s not just faith. We started broadcasting, and from day one we saw a great response from Iran.
“Iranians call us and many are praying to accept Christ. The Lord is opening the nation. Iran is more open now than ever. People are coming to Christ and dedicating their lives to serving the Lord in an amazing way.
“We have the names of over 25,000 Muslims who have called us to pray to receive Christ over the last eleven years. There are probably ten times that many who made the same decision, but did not call us.
“These people aren’t just there to enjoy Jesus, because they are under persecution. In the latest Operation World manual, Iran is listed as the fastest growing evangelical population in the world.” For security reasons, Dr Hormoz can’t go into detail about what is actually going on on the ground, but he’s very clear about the purpose of his TV programmes.
“Television for me is not a goal, it’s a tool. I want to plant churches, bring people to Christ, identify leaders and invest in those leaders. The broadcast is the part of our ministry which is public. It is a tool, ultimately, to build churches in Iran. The end result is strong, healthy, and multiplying churches.”
Dr Hormoz’s Iranian outreach is also a kind of revenge mission. When he was still young in his faith, his younger brother was arrested, held for two years and then executed at the age of 18.
“I went before the Lord and asked why,” Dr Hormoz relates. “I cried and searched and sought God. I wanted revenge. The Lord says no revenge, but that I have to love and not even be bitter and angry, so I asked, ‘What can I do?’
“The Lord told me, ‘If you want revenge, there is only one enemy – Satan. When you evangelise, that is your revenge.’
“I felt a new call at that time. I decided that I would not hate even the murderers of my brother and that I would share God’s love.”
Barnabas Ministries UK 
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