Iran (MNN) — Iran is among the fastest-growing churches in the world, but it is one of the most difficult places to reach with the Gospel. 

To fill the immense need, Lana Silk says Transform Iran developed an AI chatbot named Kairos, designed to lead people to Jesus Christ and grow in their faith. It is strictly anonymous unless someone wants to say who they are to the Transform Iran team, and the chatbot has 24-7 human oversight.

“It’s answering questions in a really thoughtful, Bible-based, considered way,” Silk says.

Kairos became a haven for seekers after the brutal government crackdowns in January that killed 30,000. Transform Iran anticipated that Kairos would help people who could not find human help, whether for practical or safety reasons, but they also discovered it helped people who wanted a chatbot by choice.  

Image courtesy of Transform Iran on Facebook

“We’ve seen multiple cases now where people were too embarrassed or ashamed of their own personal circumstances, or people were seeking and didn’t want the sort of pressure or judgment they were expecting to come from Christians in their own personal pursuit of truth. Those kinds of people are choosing Kairos,” Silk says.

One of Silk’s favorite examples of Jesus transforming a person’s life through this ministry tool came from a woman whose marriage had broken down because of adultery. She lived in the Middle East and had an affair seven years before approaching the chatbot, and she lived with that shame bottled up in her heart. She had never told anybody before, and her marriage had deteriorated to the point that she was living apart from her husband. Over the course of a week, Kairos taught her Christian doctrine on guilt and shame and helped her see how she could receive the forgiveness and freedom of Jesus. 

Then the chatbot pushed it further, encouraging her to seek reconciliation with her husband. They cried it out together, and he moved back in. 

“ Kairos, you know, just the way the tool is designed, it just keeps pushing for the next step. So it pushed her to then go and involve their pastor,” Silk says. 

She resisted, but Kairos gave her the courage to seek that next step. The final step was encouraging her to seek therapy for the trauma-related issues it had identified in her past. The woman kept coming back and reporting on the positive developments in her life from taking these steps. 

Image courtesy of Transform Iran

Silk says, “We found a woman who loved Jesus, was a Christian, who was in a totally broken-down marriage where she felt no hope for any kind of restoration, was now finding healing and restoration in her marriage, was getting help from her pastor, was getting therapy, and all because she felt she could have a conversation with an anonymous chatbot.” 

Kairos is completely free for people in poor and persecuted countries. Transform Iran also provides a free VPN to keep their spiritual inquiries safe. Silk says that it is now in around 172 countries around the world. It is being used in 27 of the top 30 countries on the Open Doors watch list for global persecution. 

Try Kairos for yourself and consider donating to Transform Iran to support the cost of keeping it running. Pray that those who need the chatbot would be able to find it, and pray that it would accelerate people’s faith and understanding of Jesus. 

 

Header image courtesy of Transform Iran