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

t. © It might be helpful to refer to the research of Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers, who argue that the main difference between Western and Eastern thinking is that the latter is not preoccupied with building logically coherent structures or systems. Instead various narratives, facts or convictions are allowed to be independent, thus allowing peaceful coexistence of seemingly conflicting stories/beliefs. (Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K Mayers, Ministering Cross Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 2003), p 52.) Cf. Parush R. Parushev, “East and West: A Theological Conversation,” Journal of European Baptist Studies, Vol. |, Issue 1 (September 2000), pp 31-44 127 Approximately 37% of the respondents (14 preachers) believe that preaching is always good, being solely a result of God’s work. 25% (10) — indicated that there are many bad sermons. Around 38% (16 preachers) expressed their conviction that if a preacher does not invest enough time in preparation he should not expect that a sermon would be successful (which means, will “touch people’s hearts”). The majority of the respondents who held a very high view of preaching are generally preachers over 50 years old. They believe that preaching cannot be bad, because it is the Word of God. Preparation for preaching is first of all a spiritual exercise for preachers’ hearts and minds, which involves prayer and a good knowledge of the Bible. Younger preachers (20-35 years old) generally express dissatisfaction with the quality of preaching in churches, arguing that preachers do not prepare enough. Their concept of preparation differs from viewing it as a purely spiritual exercise. Rather, they emphasise an in-depth understanding of biblical text (achieved through the use of various commentaries), being in favour of expository preaching popularised by John McArthur.°” Let me add a bit more complexity to this already intricate issue. As | wrote earlier, effectively 80% of non-preaching respondents (50 people) and 70% of preachers (30 people) believe that preaching cannot be bad (with some allowance for the poor spiritual preparation/condition of the preachers). Nonetheless, approximately 75% of all the respondents (75 people) answered negatively to the question of whether they agree/trust everything they hear from the pulpit. Most people (including those respondents who maintained a very positive view of preaching ministry) were also able to identity various issues they did not like about preaching in their churches — whether they considered sermons to be too long or lacking structure or clarity, or being irrelevant for their needs. Leonid Mikhovich in his forthcoming dissertation on public worship in Belarus addresses the question of poor preaching. He argues that there are various reasons for the ministry of the Word to attract much criticism and the dissatisfaction of ch