Catch the Holy Spirit...

OrbitingTheSun

If you haven't seen it in person, you have probably seen cases on television of people catching the Holy Spirit. Some people cry and wave their hands in the air, others bounce in place while mumbling, and some dance, holler, and "speak in tongues." I was just wondering if any of you have witnessed the "Holy Spirit" in action at your Kingdom Hall. I never did, but I saw it at a church I visited and it was interesting to say the least.

StinkyPantz

I visited a Penecostal church once and the Holy Spirit was "caught" by many. It was great!

undercover

Can't say if these guys had the Holy Spirit or not, but up in the Appalachian mountains there are snake handling preachers who believe even if they are bit while handling a snake during services, the spirit will protect them. And you thought JWs were nuts to go to a house with a mean dog.

JH

For some reason I was thinking of Peter Popov when I was reading your thread. He used to have a TV program and he was healing people and saying it was the lord who done it. That was a real show. I compare this to the show people give when they cry and wave their hands in the air in some churches and then they say, they accepted the lord, or the lord just came into their lives at this precise minute.

Hamas

Wacko Christians , just as crazy as the dubs

OrbitingTheSun

Can't say if these guys had the Holy Spirit or not, but up in the Appalachian mountains there are snake handling preachers who believe even if they are bit while handling a snake during services, the spirit will protect them.

I have seen them, too! Bizarre. I do not believe in the Holy Spirt, so when I see phenomena like that I consider scientific explanations. Instead of using those experiences to build faith in God, I wish people would use those experiences to build faith in themselves. The human body (especially the brain/mind) is capable of amazing things.

MegaDude

I visited the charismatic church just to round out my religious experiences. I have to say the atmosphere was like being at a rock concert. Very high energy, a lot of excitement, but the star of the show was Jesus. When people get whipped up into an emotional frenzy at these churches, they babble in gibberish, dance in the aisles, bang on tamborines, clap, yell Jay-SUS, sing, and are passing out from being "slain in the spirit." All very positive high energy, which is nice in a way because you can tell charismatics really have a good time when they worship. None of the excruciatingly dull, mind killing, ass numbing meetings of ye olde kingdom hall. But high emotion was all I witnessed and I saw no harm in that. If you interpret getting emotionally "high" over Jesus as getting the Holy Spirit, then you may very well meet the third member of the Holy Trinity at the charismatic church.

Satanus

I went to these churches for a couple of yrs. I had a hard time getting into the stuff. Once, i told jesus that i didn't feel like doing what the others were doing. I thought i saw an image of him getting up and offering me his seat. I felt so happy, i started laughing and dancing. About half the people started laughing their heads off, dancing. We carried on until the end of the service, when the pastor tried to calm us. He wasn't into it, but his wife was.

SS

OrbitingTheSun

I can't remember what denomination it was...but I once went to a church called The Rock Church and it was just like what you described. There was a point in the meeting when people ran to the front of the auditorium to be "healed" (hit in the head) by the preacher. Everyone fell over after being "healed" and there was a little group of children who put purple blankets over the women who happened to fall over with their legs wide open.

rocketman

and there was a little group of children who put purple blankets over the women who happened to fall over with their legs wide open.

Darned kids spoiled the show.

Just kidding!

Anyway, we all know that the jws say that such manifestations of holy spirit are really from the Devil, since such gifts are supposedly no more.

But, I would be curious to perhaps actually witness something like this. The meetings at the KH seem so uninspiring, that one may indeed wonder if God approves of something at least a little on the peppy side.

Sometimes, I also wonder what a first-century Christian gathering for worship was really like. While the WTS maintains that they simply read aloud, sang, and prayed, one would think that, because of the gifts of the spirit, the gatherings involved more. While the WTS points to the Israelite gatherings and synagogue worship for their basic meeting pattern, it would seem hard to ignore the evidence that first-century meetings were more moving and involved exchanges perhaps along the lines of what is seen in some churches as OTS describes.

Catch the Holy Spirit...

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