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

ious words, biblical quotations, and exhortations of a preacher. V. Popov in his article on preaching in Russian Baptist churches uses a phrase ‘the Crisis of the Genre’ as a title to a section on the contemporary state of preaching. He argues that today’s preaching can be characterised by the absence of ‘God’s fire that enflames souls,’ instead offering ‘dry lections on biblical themes or... remote from life’s problems talks.’* While correctly noticing the crisis state of Russian Baptist preaching, surprisingly, he sees the roots of the problem in churches trying to imitate the ‘western model’ of having one sermon, preached exclusively by the pastor of the church, and other ‘poorly planned experiments,’ attempting to reform Russian Baptist worship, which lead to the disappearance of ‘classical preaching’ from a lot of churches.” V. Popov defines Russian Baptist ‘classical preaching’ as a tradition of communal preaching, when various members of a congregation are involved in this ministry together with the pastor. The roots of such practice are seen in a tradition of the Jewish synagogue that was absorbed by the New Testament church. V. Popov refers to the passage in Acts 13:15, which speaks about a synagogue ruler offering Paul and his companions an opportunity to preach the state’ during the Soviet time, is now routinely used to label any dissent to the officially supported position of the Russian political establishment. (See E. V. Shabalina, “Chislitelniie v Numbers in Russian Political ” [a Russkoi Politicheskoi Frazeologii: Piataia Kolonna i Piataia Grafa Phraseology: Fifth Column and Fifth Column” J, in Politicheskaia Lingvistika, Vol. 1 (2011). “Vv. Popov, “Otechestvenniaia Shkola Propovedi...,” p 44. > Ibid. 220 an edifying message to the people.° Another passage, that offers support to such forms of preaching ministry, is seen in 1 Corinthians 14:26, which invites various people from the congregation to participate in the ministry of mutual edification.’ Whilst | disagree with the claim that attempted reforms or western influences have corrupted preaching in Russia, since such a claim lacks any backing or research behind it, and is based solely on the author’s subjective opinion,® V. Popov’s evaluation of communal preaching might serve as an important stepping stone for this section of my work. He writes Democratic approach to the ministry of the Word, rooted in the New Testament, and inherited by Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Russia from their predecessors,’ brought significant creative diversity into the worship service, contributing to the emergence of the environment, encouraging the development of the gift of preaching, and brought missionary spirit into the whole congregation. °° Omitting the debatable issue of historical succession of the practice of communal preaching, | would like focus on the positive impact it produced in the first baptistic communi