[MissBrattified]

The reason conversations like this will go in circles forever is because there's right on both sides. Is the experience emphasized over God too often? Yes. Is it okay to have an emotional experience with God? Yes. Does having an emotional reaction with God invalidate or validate the encounter? No and no. Does being devout mean avoiding our human emotions in a quest for some higher plane? No. Jesus wept. Remember? God likes exuberant, outward praise and worship and music...Remember? [Psalms] Does exuberant praise sometimes get out of hand because the participants are human? Yes. Do we need leaders who know the difference and know how to keep balance? Yes. Remember the Israelites in the wilderness with their golden calf?



The best thing to remember with a topic like this is that while you can see something may be off-kilter in a situation, you still can't adequately judge the motives of every person involved. Ergo, you can't justifiably call a worship leader (or musician) a manipulator just because people got worked up into a frenzy because the music was fast. Often, people get worked up all on their own--again, that can be alright, and sometimes it can be indecent and out of order. It's a hard call. But yet, most of us know in an instant when something is "off."