The Jesus Film Project has impacted millions around the globe by delivering the gospel message in more than 2,200 languages through its 1979 "Jesus" movie.
Now, the organization has taken on a new project to confirm reports of people in other countries coming to the Christian faith after encountering Jesus Christ in dreams and visions.
As CBN News and The 700 Club have reported for decades, consistent stories have emerged of people seeing Jesus face-to-face, often in countries closed off to Christianity, and this new project aims to confirm the stories.
The Jesus Film Project, a ministry of Cru based in Orlando, Florida, is now compiling field reports about these Jesus encounters from their teams and missionary contacts in remote locations.
"We are really excited to hear from the field, as we often do, of different people who have had dreams and visions of Jesus. And it happens quite frequently in our ministry," Holly Newell, with Special Projects at the Jesus Film, told K-LOVE.
"Jesus Film serves over 1,800 different missional partners. So, it's not just our people that are out around the world using the film. It's actually tens of thousands of missionaries and sometimes they'll send us stories that they hear and it's really exciting when we get to hear how the Lord is moving," she added.
Newell told the outlet of some of the exciting stories she is hearing from people on the ground.
One of her friends lives and works in the Middle East and met a woman from a nation where there are very few Christians.
"This woman said that one night she had a dream of a man in white. She woke up in the morning and she called her best friend, and she said, 'I can't believe it. I can't believe it. He came and appeared to me. Mohammed came just for me.' This woman's best friend just laughed at her and said, 'There is nothing special about you. There's no way that Mohammed would come just to you,'" Newell recounted.
"This dear woman was so disappointed, but she kept thinking there was something special about that dream. And so, she did what all of us do when we have a question. And she Googled, who is the man in white? And that Google search took her to our YouTube page where we have the Jesus film in over 2,200 different language versions," she continued.
"This woman found her language, watched it, and when she came to the scene of Jesus' transfiguration on the Mount, she recognized the man from her dream. She was able to continue to Google and she found a church in her nation, which is mostly full of expatriates, but the pastor there was able to lead her to Christ and she's now being discipled on how to use Jesus Film tools to reach people in her nation. So, God is doing it, he's doing it digitally and he's doing it in person," Newell added.
As CBN News has reported, Middle Easterners encountering Jesus in dreams is common.
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James Bradford, the lead pastor at Central Assembly in Springfield, Missouri, and missionary Dick Brogden told Assemblies of God News that any Islamic country is a dangerous place for a Christian and there are few opportunities for open evangelism. However, they report that Muslims are meeting Jesus in their dreams and converting to Christianity at a stunning rate.
"I would even say it's the normal experience," Brogden said in 2023. "It would be accurate to say that Muslims are responding to Jesus in levels we have never seen, not in 1,400 years!"
"Dreams are contributing to revelation [as in assurance], the process of evangelism, and conversion," he continued. "So many Muslims reject Islam but know that to follow Jesus will cost them everything. Dreams of Jesus encourage them along the way and give them the comfort that Jesus will be with them — though it cost them everything to follow Him."
Lana Silk, U.S. director of Transform Iran, told CBN News of several powerful stories about Jesus appearing specifically to Iranians in dreams.
"God is using [dreams] to speak to Iranians all the time," she said. "He uses every method He can...The Iranians are open to dreams; they are dreamers. They enjoy talking about their dreams, and they're aware of their dreams, and God uses that to speak to them."
Silk recently shared the story of one woman who was married at the age of 13 and experienced extreme abuse. The woman told Transform Iran that Jesus began appearing to her in her doorway and then in dreams.
"[He would] hold out his hand to her and say, 'Come and trust me; come and follow me,'" Silk said. "And then she would go to sleep, and he would appear to her in her dreams, and he would speak to her … it was a gentle call."
Unsure of the encounters, the woman clung more to her Muslim faith and began to recite Islamic prayer more fervently in an attempt to stop the visions. However, one day when she went to say the name of Mohammad, the name of Jesus slipped out.
That young woman eventually gave her life to Christ and now serves as a pastor with the Transform Iran ministry team.
Newell says these stories illustrate how God himself is pursuing the lost.
"He's not willing that anyone should perish. That is his heartbeat, that he will do whatever it takes to find his people around the world," she expressed.
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Meanwhile, the "Jesus" film has also been a top evangelism tool to help people discover God. "It's not just a movie," Josh Newell, executive director of the Jesus Film Project and Holly's husband, told CBN News last year. "That's really the bottom line; it's a movement. It's based off of the Word of God in the Gospel of Luke."
That one film has been viewed by an estimated 10 billion people over the past four decades, with 633 million people indicating decisions to follow Jesus.
"To hear Jesus say, 'I love you' in their own language … that's really powerful," Newell said.
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