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By Bill Warren, First Person Account
NEW ORLEANS – During a recent visit I saw again that Cuba is the setting for one of the greatest movements to Christ in our time.
Seeds from years gone by are resulting in the fastest-growing Christian setting in the Americas and one of the fastest in the entire world.
In Eastern Cuba alone, a new house church is spouting every two days – actually a bit less than two days – and people are coming to faith in Christ at a pace that has seldom been seen in history. In one gathering, 700 people became followers of Jesus in a single event!
As a more common example, in one afternoon in one single area just visiting three houses, we had 17 adults and youth became followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, committing their lives to Him upon hearing the basic story of the Gospel.
Baptist work in Cuba started in the late 1800s in the aftermath of the Spanish-Cuban-American war, one famous in the minds of many due to Teddy Roosevelt’s ride up San Juan Hill in Santiago, Cuba.
The work moved forward with American Baptists working in Eastern Cuba and Southern Baptists working in Western Cuba, seeing that as an effective way to take the work forward with both groups not covering the same territory.
The result is that even today there is a Western Cuba Baptist Convention headquartered in Havana and an Eastern Cuba Baptist Convention centered in Santiago, Cuba, the second largest city in Cuba.
When Baptist missionaries left Cuba when communism came, the work had grown with churches in many of the main cities and a theological seminary serving each of the two conventions, with one in Havana and one in Santiago for the training of Cuban pastors.
But nothing like is happening now has ever happened in Cuba before! Since the mid to late 1990s, God has been pouring out His Spirit as a massive movement to Christ takes place in Cuba, an island nation of about 11 million people.
House churches are springing up left and right, university-trained adults are turning to Christ in astounding numbers, and missions and churches are seeing God move in spite of challenging conditions – such as being in the midst of a communist country that is officially atheistic.
The birth of so many new believers has led to some ground-breaking patterns of disciple-making that have huge implications for those of us in other settings like here in the USA.
In one church, new believers are assigned a person to train them – along with the pastor – for about six months before they are considered ready for baptism.
At baptism, they are asked to reaffirm their faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior, make a pledge to be faithful in church attendance, and promise to tithe to the church. And since most everyone makes the same in Cuba, the church knows exactly how much the tithe should be, so there’s no shorting on the offerings!
Upon being baptized, the new Christians are assigned another church member who disciples them for another year and trains them in how to disciple others.
At the end of that year, the training shifts so that these relatively new Christians are assigned new believers to disciple. And so the circle keeps spiraling onward with more and more disciples being made.
The training of leaders for the work is a challenge in and of itself, which is an area where I’ve been privileged to help since 2004.
For about a decade now, professors from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary have been going to Cuba to teach and help in various ways in the churches there.
For example, I teach at least once a year at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Santiago or in one of their extension settings.
The need for training church and mission leaders at a level that prepares them for training more in their own local setting is beyond urgent. If 1,000 more leaders were ready tomorrow, they would all have places to serve in Eastern Cuba alone, there are that many needs.
Part of the struggle to train enough leaders relates to the need for the seminaries to fund the students during their studies. The average family of four only has about $30 to $50 of disposable income per month, with much of that being needed for family needs.
And since the government does not fund students at the seminary, the seminaries have to provide the funds for the students in conjunction with the Cuban Baptist Conventions.
In part, this financial challenge keeps the student numbers quite low at the seminaries compared to the needs in the churches.
As for going to Cuba, our government has eased restrictions for those going for religious work or education purposes, though tourism travel still is prohibited.
For example, 14 of us went to Santiago in May 2012, with work including the teaching of a course at the seminary, workshops and preaching in the churches, and work on construction projects. People came to faith in Christ at every church service (not counting the church leadership training sessions).
So how can you help? First, pray for our Cuban brothers and sisters in Christ as they seek to stay open to what God is doing and in tune with His leadership on how to move forward.
Second, consider becoming part of a group working with the Cuban Baptist Conventions and our SBC missionaries to help in Cuba.
Third, consider going as part of a group that is working with the Cuban Baptist Conventions and our SBC missionaries to help in Cuba.
May the movement of God happening now in Cuba continue both there and beyond, resulting in more and more becoming part of the kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Bill Warren is professor of New Testament and Greek at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and a regular contributor on the Theological Thought pages of the Baptist Message.