In a recent episode of the Live Free with Josh Howerton podcast, Iranian-born pastor and evangelist David Nasser sat down for a conversation that stopped the show. In the middle of discussing what God is doing in Iran today, Nasser pulled back the curtain on something deeply personal, the story of how his own family came to know Jesus after fleeing one of the most dangerous revolutions of the twentieth century.
It is a story about refugees, fear, and starting over. But more than anything, it is a story about a church that simply showed up.
A Boy Running for His Life
David Nasser was nine years old when his world collapsed. It was 1979, and the Iranian Revolution had turned his country upside down. His father was a high-ranking military officer in the previous government which made the Nasser family a target the moment the Ayatollah’s forces took control.
One of Nasser’s earliest memories of the revolution is being called to the front of a school assembly on a military base, where a soldier pressed a gun to his nine-year-old head to make an example of him. The family knew they had to leave.
They devised a desperate plan. His mother would pretend to need emergency heart surgery in Switzerland. They bought round-trip airline tickets to avoid suspicion knowing they would never use the return half. At the airport, Nasser remembers gripping his father’s shaking hand as his father whispered that if anyone found out they were escaping, they would be killed on the spot.
They made it out. Eventually, after nearly a year in exile, the family found refuge in the United States. Iranian refugees in a country that barely understood Iran, arriving in a city that would change their lives forever.
A Restaurant, a Church, and a Towel
Starting over in Colleen Texas, David’s father opened a restaurant. It was hard work — long hours, not enough staff, a man trying to rebuild dignity for his family in a foreign land.
And then some people from a local church started coming in for lunch.
They noticed the restaurant was shorthanded. And instead of just leaving a tip or offering to pray, they did something unexpected. They got up from their tables. They picked up towels. And they began waiting and busing tables alongside the Nasser family for free, out of nothing but kindness.
They kept coming back. Day after day. Not to hand out tracts. Not to convert anyone. Just to serve.
Eventually, the church’s choir director invited David’s father to Wednesday night choir practice. He explained the restaurant’s need to the congregation, and volunteers covered the next two weeks of shifts. That kindness began to soften a father’s heart.
“My story is not about an Iranian kid who turned out alright. It’s about a church that showed up — and kept showing up.”
— David Nasser
The Night Grace Made Sense
It was around this same time that a friend invited David to church. He asked his father in front of his friend for permission, knowing that the response would be no. He was surprised when his father asked, “What church?” To that, David’s friend responded, “Shades.” It just so happened Shades Baptist was the church that had been helping at the restaurant. They had been preparing the way for this moment. David’s father responded, “I know those people, you can go there.”
At the church Nasser witnessed something he had never seen before. He watched as people heard the gospel and they wept. He looked around at the tears and thought, What is wrong with you people? He had never seen grace make people gracious. He had never witnessed a generosity that didn’t want anything in return.
That night, something cracked open inside him. He began to take the gospel seriously.
He kept going back to church, Sundays, Wednesdays, and every Monday when seventeen teenagers from the youth group showed up at his house to share the gospel with him, even when he wasn’t interested. They were persistent, and they were kind. One Sunday night, the preacher extended an invitation and Nasser slipped out, convinced he was done with all of it.
But God wasn’t done with him.
That night, alone in his bedroom, he opened the Bible one of the teenagers had given him. He turned to the story of Peter walking on the water toward Jesus — and the words came alive off the page. God was calling him to step out. At eighteen years old, he surrendered his life to Christ — an Iranian refugee from a Muslim family, saved by the persistent, sleeves-rolled-up love of an ordinary Baptist church.
What This Means for Us
David Nasser went on to become one of the most recognized evangelists and pastors in America, speaking to hundreds of thousands of people each year. But none of it starts with a stadium. None of it starts with a platform.
It starts with a church that noticed a shorthanded Iranian restaurant owner and decided to pick up a towel.
That is the invitation in front of every church — including ours. The people God is sending to your community are watching to see if the love we preach is the love we actually live. Kindness is not a strategy. It is a sacrament. It is the language of the Kingdom that every human heart can understand, even before they understand grace.
Who in your world needs someone to pick up a towel?
Watch the Full Interview
David Nasser shares this story — and much more about what God is doing in the underground church in Iran right now — in this episode of the Live Free with Josh Howerton podcast. The moment described above begins around the 1:10:00 mark.