The Story of Cuba + Neopolis
INTRODUCTION
In many ways, the story of what God is doing in Neopolis globally is captured by the nearly decade-long partnership that the Lord led us to in Cuba. Why? Cuba is going through a kind of intense and beautiful island-wide reformation, sparked by a return to the Word of God -- in marriages, in the home, and significantly, in the church.
At the center of this movement is a humble couple named Alexis and Lourdes Perez. Alexis became a Christian at university in 1992, felt a call to ministry, and began pastoring. The trajectory of his ministry changed dramatically when, in 2008, Alexis and Lourdes moved to London to attend the Cornhill Training Course, established by the expositional training ministry of the Proclamation Trust.
“After I returned to Cuba, I tore up all my old sermons and set out to train other leaders,” Alexis says. Upon returning to Cuba in 2009, Alexis founded Equipo Impacto (now Predicar Fiel or “Faithful Preaching”) and began training leaders in expository preaching across the island.
In 2015, Alexis reached out to Pastor Dennis about joining the newly emerging Neopolis. He wanted to be a part of a movement that established new churches committed to “preaching, pastoring, and planting to the glory of God.” Alexis and Lourdes had just established a fledgling church called Nueva Vida (New Life) which met, with intended irony, in a cemetery.
Eventually, in partnership with Neopolis and through miraculous provision, the Lord allowed Nueva Vida to purchase a once-in-a-lifetime church property in Old Havana that has become a hub for training pastors and leaders all across the island.
Looking back, we can see how the Lord allowed the work from Nueava Vida to unfold over four key stages: exploring, emerging, maturing and multiplying.
EXPLORING (2015 - 2017)
In April 2015, Alexis submitted an application to Pastor Dennis and Neopolis leadership. In the letter he wrote, “For me, the big picture is this: God has called me to preach the Bible and to train other men to do the same. The best way I can think to do that is through Nueva Vida church.”
The vision for training was to focus on younger leaders. Alexis wrote, “The key for us will be training. We want to train the best men of God in expositional preaching and ministry.”
The focus was also on what we now call a “Mature Training Church.” “I want this church to be a church that attracts young men to ministry and becomes a hub for planting churches in Havana (and someday around Cuba and all of Latin America).”
That said, in the exploratory stage, the ministry was really just Alexis, Lourdes and a handful of younger and older Christians from the community.
EMERGING (2017-2019)
In the emerging stage, Alexis began developing what we now call a “Leadership Pipeline” called The Havana Plan. It took its name from a similar plan established by Jon Dennis and David Helm at Holy Trinity in Chicago.
As they saw the number of leaders growing, Alexis and his team began praying about where, specifically, to plant new congregations.
It was during this stage, through the miraculous intervention of the Lord’s hand and through partnerships, they saw the Lord allow them to purchase a building in Old Havana that has become a hub for training leaders across the whole island.
Maturing (2019 - 2021)
In 2019 Pastor Dennis returned to Havana to do training with about 25 pastors on the biblical basis for developing a network. The leaders were generally interested but sensed it wasn’t yet time to launch.
Both The Havana Plan and Nueva Vida were growing. Now in two locations, they sent out their first few church planters to various parts of the island.
Multiplying (2021 - 2024)
In June 2021, during a visit to Havana, the leaders of Nueva Vida shared with Pastor Dennis and Neopolis leaders that they felt ready to launch a network to minister across the whole island, coming alongside Alexis’ work with Predica Fiel to do the work of supporting church planting, revitalization, and training. They launched the work under the name Red de Iglesia, with nearly twenty churches in the network.
This moment of founding the network was a critical and emotional one. Alex and Lourdes had come to realize that for the safety of the work, because of political persecution, as well as the opportunity to further the work of the gospel throughout Latin America, they needed to leave Cuba to move to Miami. In that moment, the younger leaders realized how fully the Lord had answered the original vision.
Between 2022 and 2023, leaders from the Havana Plan and from Nueva Vida began shifting their work to focus not merely on the local church but on serving the growth of churches all across the island in revitalization, church planting, preaching, and developing leadership pipelines.
The work is multiplying with the new leaders developing their own leadership pipelines, not only in Havana but in Santa Clara and Santis Spiritus. More work is planned for other cities, and the Havana Plan continues to train up leaders to meet the growing needs.
In his original application, Alexis wrote, “I like the vision of Neopolis and think it will be a blessing to Cuba. Cuba is in a very important transition right now and we don’t know for how long. This is a providential time to preach the gospel and plant churches in big cities in Cuba!”
Amen! We praise the Lord for this partnership and for how the gospel has grown. We are excited for the future.
