Pastor analyzes phenomenon of the home churches

José Aurelio Paz, HAVANA, Cuba, September 26, 2005

“The secret of the surprising growth of the Churches in Cuba is linked to the Taxi Heathrow Airport small groups that met in neighborhoods, in rural communities, in new urbanizations and even in jails, constituting the so-called home churches or prayer cells,” said Pastor Francisco Rodes in an article published in the Tribuna Ecumenica bulletin.

The Baptist pastor and current director of the Karios Center in the city of Matzanzas carried out an analysis of the new forms of evangelism in Cuba, based on work entitled “Challenge of the present for the Cuban Church.”

In the most recent issue of Tribuna Ecumenical, the informative bulletin of the Cuban Council of Churches (CIC), Roca addressed a nerve center ofCuban Church reality. 

Based on the affirmation by Chilean theologian Pablo Richard that the movement of the followers of Jesus was “born in homes,” Rodes said it is “not strange that this model of Church close to the people is especially attractive to the Cuban of today.”

“The lack of trust of the institution, of clerics and professional pastors, installed in a traditional Church formality, frequently foreign to the joyful and irreverent character of the Cubans, means that attending a Church seems like something from another era. However, these meetings in neighborhoods, in their neighbors houses, in an atmosphere of spontaneity helps them break any anti-religious prejudices they could have,” said Rodes.

The Cuban leader then cited other elements that helped the phenomenon. The fact that the Word of God is not presented from

the pulpit but in a small group by someone who speaks the language of the street and is aware of the concerns of the community. The spontaneity of their prayers that gather the concerns and of the people and the individual nature of the requests for sick neighbors or those in difficulty, also helps.

He added that it creates the right environment for a real and effective solidarity where people seek collective solutions to family crisis and consolation for people in need. However, he also spoke about the dangers inherent in this “style” as many of these home Churches have become institutionalized and do not differ from a regular Church. “Others operate like a link in a chain where the center is far from the community. In these cases they correspond to a rising denominationalism in our society, occasionally accompanied by a Church bureaucracy only interested in having the machine work and achieving numeric and economic success,” he added.

He warned about the penetration covered up of powerful economic groups that offer economic benefits to grassroots pastors in exchange for an unconditional submission to their directors. This is a factor that “distorts the good spirit of the communities,” he said. As a result the proclamation of the Word becomes a proselytist obsession that only intimated people in order to gain adepts,” he said. 

Despite these shadowy elements that can be perceived, said the Cuban pastor, the final balance is very positive in terms of a prototype of a Church that has demonstrated its effectiveness to help the people find a meaning for their lives in faith, at a time when people have lost many of the certainties that encouraged them.