Jeremiah Tipton identifies warning signs of cult behavior in religious movements: being discouraged from outside sources, dismissive language toward other groups, and the belief that only your movement represents God's true work. Jesus celebrated other ministries aligned with the kingdom, not just his own.
Let me ask you, in the place that you are, are you discouraged from watching other ministries online? Are you discouraged from reading books that they did not approve? Are you discouraged from connecting with other believers simply because they're not from your movement? Is there talk and dismissive language used toward other ministries? When God begins to move, there'll be these very subtle jabs from the pulpit, talking down on other moves of God, explaining why that's not really the move of God. But here we have it. Be careful, because that is cult-like thinking. As I'm explaining this to you, you may be in your mind going, oh my goodness, yes, that's exactly what's going on. But then that fear is causing you to retreat and say, oh, but I can't question that. So this whole mindset of, you know, everywhere else is not the true move, or everywhere else is a lesser move of God, and this is where the Lord is moving, this is the hotspot, this is the center of revival, this is where God is doing his thing. Be very careful. Not even Jesus talked like that. And he was the very center. He is the very center of it all. But even he could celebrate other ministries as long as the agenda was the kingdom of God. If you're being discouraged from connecting with other ministries, if other ministries are subtly criticized publicly and straight out criticized in private, there's an issue. That's jealousy, that's competition. That's a sign that there is a cult-like environment.
