Methodist Cuban church grows as it overcomes challenges
4/27/1998 News media contact: Linda Bloom · (646) 369-3759 · New York NOTE: This story is accompanied by a sidebar, UMNS #257.
STAMFORD, Conn. (UMNS) - When the Rev. Humberto Fuentes "received the call" to become a Methodist pastor in Cuba, his country was on the brink of revolution.
In 1959, 60 Cuban-born pastors and some 40 U.S. missionaries were serving more than 10,000 official members in 108 churches. Methodists also had created dozens of schools and clinics, set up an agricultural center and established the first Protestant university on the island.
By 1961, the new government led by Fidel Castro had taken over the church's schools and other social programs. The missionaries had been asked to leave, and many Cuban pastors followed.
But Fuentes and other Methodists who stayed kept the church going. Today, with the relaxation of anti-religious practices by the government and other changes in Cuba, the church has seen considerable growth, particularly among young people. It has added gatherings in more than 200 "house churches" to its original 108 congregations.
During its April 20-23 meeting here, the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries added its support by approving nearly $1 million in grants for the Methodist Church in Cuba. A significant chunk of that money will be used to repair the crumbling church infrastructure.
Although the board has assisted the Cuban church in a variety of ways in the past, it had not recognized the priority of the repair work, according to the Rev. Michael Rivas, a board deputy general secretary and Cuban American.
"What we did not seem to appreciate was the fact that in Cuba, because of government policies, we could not hold religious activities of any kind outside of church buildings," he told board directors. "This was a reality peculiar to the Cuban context, but we couldn't adapt our policies to accommodate that reality."
The board has applied for a U.S. Treasury Department license to help provide assistance to the Cuban church. In addition to the repair work, grant money will be used to provide small hard-currency subsidies to pastors, help mission partnerships and exchanges, and provide leadership development and training. "They have over 100 candidates for the ministry," Rivas noted.
Fuentes, associate pastor of La Trinidad Methodist Church in Havana, serves a mixed-race, poor neighborhood plagued by problems such as prostitution and alcoholism. Some of the prostitutes, he added, had left professional careers in order to earn hard currency through the skin trade.
The young people who come to his services have lost their self-esteem but have heard that the church has a message of hope to give, he said.
"The challenge of the Cuban churches is not evangelization," Fuentes said, adding that people are coming to services on their own. "The challenge is the formation of these persons …who have the desire to be helped."
Tension has existed between the older generation of longtime Methodists and the young newcomers, but those difficulties are being worked out.
Now, according to Fuentes, "we have a beautiful church where the children, the youth and the adults share the faith of Jesus Christ."
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