Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

great pains to encourage believers to be good examples in their work. Local authorities who included believers on the honor roll at a factory were often ordered by superiors to take down the pictures of Christian work heroes because this was an embar- rassment for Soviet propaganda. But through the years the work reliability of Soviet Baptists became proverbial, in spite of numerous propaganda claims to the contrary. This writer once chanced to overhear a conversation between two medium-level officials in a Soviet restaurant. The one re- marked that he had a number of believers in his factory and was coming under pressure to dismiss them, but as far as he was concerned, they good workers and he didn’t see why religious persuasion should make a dif- ference in his factory. Those sentiments are becoming widespread except at the party leadership level. 7 Workmates are a rather significant source for gaining converts. Outright witnessing in the Western sense of introducing the subject of Christianity to some unsuspecting person is not permitted in the Soviet Union. But when the workmates ask questions about the believer's lifestyle and beliefs, he will reply and probably invite the workmate to attend the worship service for himself. The sermon or the music or other aspects of the service may attract his attention and trigger the desire to be converted, but the basic credit belongs to the quiet diligent believer at his place of work. Renewal and Church Growth, 1944-1957 69 A great many conversions take place during the week following the be- ginning of the new year. Most evangelical churches in the Soviet Union conduct a prayer week consisting of nightly services devoted to preaching and congregational prayer. In contrast to worship services during the rest of the year, which are usually unplanned, the prayer week is usually given a special theme so that each sermon, even if delivered by various laymen present, speaks to a common theme. During the revivals of the 1950s, these had been the special occasions where individuals stood up in the service, confessed their sins publicly, broke down in tears, and prayed to God for forgiveness. One man, for example, came to the realization that he had been a prisoner of smoking and therefore wanted to make an end of this sin. Having been converted the night before, he gave his beautiful leather to- bacco pouch to a close friend. The friend was converted that night and passed the lovely tobacco pouch on to a third friend. The third friend was converted on the subsequent evening. When he tried to give the tobacco pouch to a fourth friend, the latter protested, fearing that if he accepted the tobacco pouch, he too would have to become converted. This sense of the inevitability of people getting right with God during the first week of the new year because of the concentrated preaching and concentrated praying produced a tradition which has made the new year week of pra