Week Seven

Looking toward the future
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams" (Acts 2:17, NIV).

During these past 42 days, you've been praying weekly about Cuban Baptists' dreams to reach a million Cubans for Christ and to start 100,000 new churches by the end of 2010. Looking toward those goals, Cuban Baptists are already experiencing one of the most rapid rates of church growth in the world.

As a result of that growth, one of the major issues facing Cuban Baptists is a vast need for more church leaders. "For many years our work has been larger than the leadership," says Pastor José Enrique Pérez, a Cuban Baptist missions leader. "We've been trying to repair the situation."

One way Cuban Baptists are trying to do that is by moving theological education closer to the local churches to equip lay people to assume major church leadership roles. At his church José Enrique coordinates a training center that makes it possible for students to receive theological education without having to leave their ministry to attend seminary. "Every church should be a center of theological training in order to prepare the thousands of leaders that we will need," he says.

Besides this emphasis, some Cuban Baptist leaders are trying to get churches to enlarge their staff to include missions ministers able to motivate the church to strategically accomplish its mission. Cuban Baptist seminary professor and pastor Daniel González Garcia leads a missions-study track at his seminary that prepares students for such a role. "We understand that nothing will happen in Cuba-speaking spiritually-without the church fulfilling its mission," Daniel says.

Cuban Baptists are also training children to become future church leaders. One church not only reaches out to children through traditional church programs but also has started nearly a dozen house churches for children. In these house churches, children learn how to lead worship and study the Bible. Their teachers share the Gospel with the children but also try to reach their parents and extended family.

"We establish a relationship with the parents and don't let it go," says Cuban Baptist children's leader Xiomar Acosta Blanco. "We follow them until they come to know God."

A focus on the family is central to the development of the church in Cuba, says Daniel. "The best training for us as pastors is our family and our extended family," he says. "The success of a pastor here will not be to deliver a great sermon to a large gathering, but rather to communicate sincerely in one small group truths that can be told in another and another."

As Cuban Baptists look toward the future, "We're not thinking as much about a city with large churches but communities saturated with (house) churches," Daniel says. "The home is where the real test of spiritual disciplines lies-of patience, self-control, forgiveness. The home is basic and simple."
___________________

Sunday, May 4 - Day Forty-Three
The rapid rate of church growth in Cuba has created a huge need for practical leadership in the churches. Pray God will raise up enough leaders to disciple the thousands of Cubans who are being won to Christ.