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

ting this ministry: °° Ibid., p 36. > Ibid., pp 37-38. > Ibid., p 41. 105 1. Call to the Lord: ‘Open my eyes and | will see the wonders of your Law.’ (Ps. 118, 18); Choose a text; Think about it; Analyse it; Seal it in memory; a wu PF Ww DN Remember that Christ must be in the centre of the sermon, ‘We preach Jesus Christ crucified...’ (1 Cor. 1, 23) 7. Remain in constant prayer about your sermon; 8. Look for examples, ‘All of it Jesus spoke through parables and without parables did not speak to them’ (Matthew 13, 34); 9. Limit: ‘In many words you won’t avoid sin, but the one that holds his lips’ (Prov. 10,19); 10. Everything you think about must be submitted to the Lord, ‘Submit to the Lord your way, rely on Him, and He will accomplish’ (Ps. 36,5).°° A short summary of the chapter might be required at this stage. | have offered an overview of all the publications of the BV that addressed preaching and the personality of preachers covering the period from 1945 to 1969. Most of them conveyed a rather unambiguous message — the most important thing in preaching is the spirituality of a preacher. Personal spiritual experience, passion for Christ, time spent in prayer and reflection on the Word, as well as genuine desire to see people saved — these were the main prerequisites for a successful sermon. In turn, the listeners were taught that discovering precious pearls of God’s truths was their direct responsibility when listening to preaching. Active listening (with prayer and reflection prior to the worship service) was encouraged, moreover, made a requirement for a successful sermon. Although the majority of contemporary Christian preachers would emphasize the importance of prayer, reflection and God’s guidance in the process of sermon preparation, the over-spiritualization of the practice that can be observed in the publications of the BV eventually led to lower standards of preaching and teaching in churches, as well as opened the doors for the abuse of power, since preachers, and °3 Ibid. (The biblical passages are translated from Russian). 106 particularly pastors, were given a special status of “God’s anointed people,” thus were exempt from any accountability. The leadership of the Baptist Union was aware of the problems. Their dissatisfaction with the state of preaching in churches can be seen through a number of publications, trying to deal with the problem of poor preaching by addressing such questions as sermon preparation, structure, and style of delivery, as well as by offering sets of sermon notes already prepared for the use in churches. Yet most of the recommendations these articles brought forward, such as to have clear structure in sermons, read commentaries, observe the reaction of the listeners, only highlighted the need to rely on the Holy Spirit in preparation, since no commentaries were available, the correct understanding and application of the B