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

en in church ministry in Involuntarily Free or Voluntarily Bound: Singleness in the Baptistic Communities of Post- communist Europe. |IBTS Occasional Publications Series, Vol. Il (Prague, International Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003). 3 Although this description may seem rather simplistic, it accurately reflects the understanding of a large number of both members and visitors of Russian Baptist churches. For a more in-depth discussion of the issue of the definition of preaching see Chapter 4. as a reference to preaching — the proclaimed Word of God.* Thus preaching, understood as the “Word of God,” is seen as something very powerful for forming Christian convictions of the listeners, for making Christians more “Christlike,” and ultimately, for making them better Baptists. The question that is never asked though is whether this assumption, of preaching possessing great formative power, is a correct one. Thus the lack of critical analysis of the role of preaching defines the main question for this research — to study whether the presupposition of Russian Baptists of preaching being a major driving force in forming Baptist identity is a correct one, thus concluding whether it rightly holds its position of high respect, and reverence. Paradoxically, there is little work done specifically on Baptist preaching in Russia (neither by Baptists nor by anybody else). Therefore, the part of my research related to preaching would be based on personal observations, interviews, surveys, articles from Baptist magazines and newspapers and some secular publications produced in the Soviet time. The absence of written sources, however, does not imply that the subject of preaching was neglected. On the contrary, preaching always received a lot of attention. Yet due to the high view of this practice, with heavy emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in the act of proclamation, most articles on preaching and preachers were focused primarily on the qualities of preachers and their preparation (particularly spiritual preparation) for the event of proclamation.’ There was no attempt to engage in critical assessment and revision of what were actual convictions about preaching that both preachers and listeners held, how these convictions developed, and most importantly, whether preaching rightly held the central position among all other church activities. Furthermore, an attempt to perform such an assessment would be considered inappropriate, if not sinful by many Christians.° “In Russian Baptist churches preaching has something similar to a sacramental understanding. When preaching is referred to as “the Word of God,” this means exactly that — preaching is not the word of a preacher. Somehow the “Word” and the preacher are disconnected from each other. People may disagree with a preacher (in their everyday life), they may dislike a preacher, but in most cases the same people will not dare to criticise the sermon proclaime