Quote:
Originally Posted by countmeworthy
Both you and And OBW are correct Ohio... In the locality I was in, there were people who gave off the wall testimonies that had nothing to do with the message or what the Lord had shown them. But because some of them had self esteem problems, by getting up and saying something... even if it was stupid, the person standing up got the attention from the saints.
That said, there were many more times when a person spoke, the anointing of the LORD was very strong on that person and we ALL benefited from their testimony. Sometimes the prayer meetings were awesome. Prayers were built upon prayers...like stacked up.
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I have seen instances of both. Many times the saints who are quieter or those who don't stand up often tend to get lauded. It's not something that's overt, but it's obvious when everyone is impressed with someone speaking. When I went to the semi-annual trainings, the "testing" at the end of messages was nothing less that a performance. When a group went up to get tested and they followed each other well, they would get kudos. I remember that often when the testing had concluded, everyone in the room would start clapping, and the brothers would reprimand everyone saying "we don't clap in the church life". Despite their words, the reaction of the audience always proved that everyone saw it as a performance.
On the other hand, I can say that knowing I might be asked to speak in a meeting has helped me at times to actually spend more time in the word than I would have otherwise. I feel like at times I have spoken things that really were beneficial and of the Lord. Over time, when I realized that the brothers usually prefer everyone to just "re-speak" points that they enjoyed, I started to gravitate towards saying what they would want to hear, rather than what I had really enjoyed. This kind of speaking isn't genuine, and I'm sorry to say that there have been many times where I have just made stuff up on the spot that I know is what everyone wants to hear.