Originally Posted by Zem

Unfortunately people have been led to believe that if you don't speak in tongues, you don't have the holy spirit. While I believe that speaking in tongues can be EVIDENCE of the holy spirit, I don't believe it is a necessity. Because of this social pressure to "prove" oneself of having the Holy Spirit, the church world is full of fakers who say all the words are just exploding from them with no effort on their part.

I think if people were a bit more humble and said to each other: "let's try speaking in tongues by making noises with our mouths and see how we feel", they would find it a lot more fulfilling. I had a woman on the street once who started kind of freaking out on me because I didn't say if I ever healed someone or not. To her, if I had not healed someone miraculously, then I was not a Christian. What a bunch of bologna!