Towards Understanding of the Practice of Proclamation: The Core Element of Russian Baptist Worship, Timofey Cheprasov, 2015

st Baptist Church of Voronezh. This community also has a high proportion of young people, although it follows a very traditional style of worship and preaching (multiple sermons in every worship service). Current membership of the church is just over 90 people. The churches mentioned above were chosen in order to see whether the location, the age of the congregation, and patterns of service that are followed affect the way people understand preaching and what they expect it to be. Initially, working with these communities was supposed to be the first step towards conducting similar surveys in churches across the Russian Federation. It might be important to mention that these surveys were the very first step in this whole project on preaching in Russian Baptist communities. Initially, | have approached the subject of “formative preaching” in a similar way to many educators, both Russian and Anglo-American, who attempted to teach preaching in Russia. | was interested in such questions as how people listen to sermons. What do they remember (if anything) after the preaching event? Which themes can be called relevant? What rhetorical devices are appropriate in the pulpit in a given cultural setting? The survey required nearly two hours to complete, with respondents needing to write their own answers.*" However, the picture built out of the responses that | received from the churches was very complex, pointing to various important and sometimes unexpected issues. There were a number of unforeseen topics that came to the forefront, which eventually gave my whole research a different direction — from a study on homiletics towards a realization that “the ministry of the Word” should be approached differently, and seen within the context of Russian historical and theological nests. Further research on the subject (Chapters 1-4) has revealed that views and understanding of preaching that can be observed in the churches | have surveyed, is a natural outcome of how preaching in Russia has been developing. Thus | decided to limit my survey to one region — Voronezh, which will be used as a case study that, based on the findings of the preceding chapters, 3 For the questionnaire used see Appendix 1. 124 can be seen as largely representative of Russian Baptists. Thus for this particular study and research question it is my contention that more surveys were not needed. Furthermore, it is important to make it clear that | am not attempting to do quantitative research, although | have aimed at having respondents from various age groups, educational background, and Christian experience. Neither should the use of “oercentages” of people who responded in various ways be an indication of my attempt to do statistical analysis of the views of preaching prevalent in Russian Baptist communities. The use of the impressions and opinions of the respondents from Voronezh area was instrumental in directing my studies towar