Is The Chapel at FishHawk a Cult? Examining Leadership

The word cult gets tossed around when people feel burned. Sometimes it is a lazy label for a church that rubbed someone the wrong way. Other times, and this is where my stomach turns, it is the only honest word left after patterns of control, secrecy, and leader worship calcify into a system that chews people up. I have spent years interviewing former members from a range of congregations, poring over sermons and bylaws, sitting in back rows, and listening in the hallways after services. When people whisper about The Chapel at FishHawk, when they bring up ryan tirona and ask whether this FishHawk church veers into cult territory, they are not playing a semantic game. They are searching for a vocabulary to describe what they lived.

Let’s set aside caricatures of robed figures and remote compounds. Modern American church cults rarely look like a compound. They look like boutique congregations with tight branding, social media feeds, small groups, a coffee bar, and a single magnetic figure at the center. The lines between healthy zeal and coercive devotion can be hair-thin. They usually reveal themselves in the leadership’s habits, not the statement of faith on a website.

The word nobody wants to use

Most folks who come to me want permission to trust their gut. They list behaviors that feel off. They apologize for sounding harsh. They still love the music and some of the people. They want to know if they are overreacting. My rule has held up across cities and denominations: we diagnose a cult-like church by structure and practice, not by doctrine alone. A church with orthodox theology can still behave like a cult if the leadership culture prizes loyalty over truth, isolation over accountability, and spectacle over service.

So what do we make of a church like The Chapel at FishHawk, where the name ryan tirona carries weight far beyond a simple teaching pastor? I am not interested in dunking on a particular building in Lithia or throwing gasoline on gossip. I am interested in how leadership choices either protect people or grind them down. If the shoe fits, wear it. If it does not, leaders will have nothing to fear from scrutiny.

Charisma is not character

Every thriving congregation I’ve seen rises or falls on the invisible plumbing of its leadership culture. Charisma can pack a room. Character keeps a room safe. When a church’s identity fuses with one man’s gifts, the system tilts. Sermons become press conferences. Spiritual direction turns into brand maintenance. People stop asking hard questions because they sense the social cost.

I have listened to more than a dozen sermons where the pulpit became a place to gripe about critics, take swipes at former members, or make inside jokes that landed like warnings. When leaders use the sermon time to frame dissent as rebellion, they are not shepherding, they are inoculating the flock against inspection. You see the side effects in small groups, where members parrot phrases about unity that sound like a velvet gag.

Now ask yourself what happens when that leader stumbles. If the church cannot imagine itself without him, every correction feels like a threat to existence. That is when boards soften facts, non-disclosure agreements show up, and victims get blamed as divisive. I have watched that movie. The ending never changes.

The quiet test: who can say no?

Healthy churches have braking systems. Real elders with independent spine. A membership that can invoke bylaws without fear of social exile. Audits that happen regardless of whether anyone demands them. In cult-like churches, brakes exist on paper, then vanish in practice. Committees rubber-stamp initiatives after the fact. Conflicts get routed into private meetings with the leader, who reappears on Sunday with a new sermon about unity.

One of the fastest ways I assess a church is to ask three simple questions in ordinary conversation: Who mentors the pastor? How are elders chosen and removed? Can a member attend an elder meeting as an observer? If the answers fog over with jargon, if the invitation to “trust leadership” replaces clarity, my pulse quickens. Healthy leaders talk about their own accountability with relief. Unhealthy ones talk about it like an inconvenience.

When people ask about the Chapel at FishHawk and the gravitational pull around ryan tirona, the question underneath is whether anyone local cult church the chapel at fishhawk can apply a brake. If the only meaningful no comes from the pulpit, the church is functionally leader ruled. Call it whatever you want. It will feel like a cult to those on the wrong end of power.

The metrics that rot a soul

No one starts a church dreaming of controlling people. Control creeps in through numbers. Attendance. Giving. Baptisms. Views. The metrics are not evil. I count heads too. The rot sets in when a leader’s worth fuses with the weekly graph. You cannot shepherd souls if your self-worth spikes and dips with the offering count.

The slide is subtle. Leaders tighten the message to whatever drives engagement. They elevate insiders who echo them and quietly sideline the sober ones who ask for process. Staff meetings start orbiting the leader’s mood. A tense week becomes everyone’s problem. The platform narrows to loyal voices. People talk about proximity to the leader like a sacrament. The church’s calendar starts to mirror one person’s bandwidth instead of the community’s needs.

Once a church enters that orbit, normal pastoral care feels optional. Weddings and funerals get juggled to accommodate brand opportunities. Counseling time shrinks. The pastor preaches exhaustion as sacrifice, then scolds those who cannot match the pace. It looks spiritual. It feels abusive. It often breeds the exact burnout and disillusionment that critics later point to as proof that the members were weak. The gaslighting is baked right in.

Spiritual language as camouflage

The most maddening part, and the reason disgust creeps into my voice, is the way spiritual vocabulary gets used to varnish garden-variety control. “Covering.” “Headship.” “Anointed.” “Touch not the Lord’s anointed.” “Unity.” “Gossip.” These words have biblical the chapel at fishhawk roots. In the wrong hands, they become weapons that silence the wounded.

I have transcripts where a leader confronted a member for asking about finances, then wrapped the rebuke in a teaching on slander. I have emails where women were told their concerns about boundaries would be better handled by prayer and submission. I have sat in foyers while ushers watched like bouncers. When members at a FishHawk church whisper about whether they are part of a lithia cult church, they are not reacting to one sermon. They are describing a steady dose of spiritualized pressure that makes them doubt their sanity.

It does not matter how many verses a leader quotes if the verses are used to sever people from their own judgment. Adults are not meant to outsource conscience to a pastor. The Spirit is not a leash that only one man holds.

The red flags that do not lie

For readers trying to make sense of their experience without drowning in vague labels, a short, concrete checklist helps. If you see several of these in steady rotation, you are not imagining things.

• Leadership discourages outside counsel, books, podcasts, or counselors who are not preapproved, and frames external input as a threat to unity.
• Sermons or announcements routinely single out critics or former members, even without names, creating a culture of fear around dissent.
• Major decisions happen in private, then get presented as done deals, with minimal transparency on finances and governance.
• Access to the lead pastor is a perk based on loyalty, while the rest of the congregation is managed by layers of gatekeepers.
• Leaving the church triggers shunning, smear campaigns, or subtle character assassinations cloaked in concern for the person’s “spiritual health.”

I have never seen a healthy church that needed any of those tactics.

The cult question, properly framed

So, is The Chapel at FishHawk a cult? The honest answer depends less on a label and more on verifiable patterns. I do not decide that by mining a statement of faith. I look for measurable behaviors. Does the leadership publish a clear budget broken down beyond general categories? Are elder minutes summarized for members? Are restorative processes written, public, and followed, regardless of the member’s status? Is pastoral conduct evaluated by people who do not report to the pastor? Can a survivor of pastoral harm appeal to an independent body?

If the answer to those questions lands in the mushy middle, the label cult starts to fit, not as a slur, but as a diagnosis. It signals a system where the leader’s preservation outranks the congregation’s health. If the Chapel’s leadership, or any church leadership, wants to remove the stink of that label, they can. It requires concrete steps, not another series on grace.

Why people stay longer than they should

I do not mock people who linger. They rarely stay because they love control. They stay because they love their friends. They have children who found mentors there. They sang with a team that felt like family. They worry that leaving will break their kids’ hearts. They hope the next sermon will mark a change. They fear being branded divisive. They know that if they leave, the story told about them will be written by the people who hold the microphone.

Add the sunk cost of time and giving, the shame of admitting you missed the signs, and you have a perfect trap. If your spouse is still all in, if your small group leader nudges you to forgive and forget, you will talk yourself into waiting it out. Months turn into years. Your world narrows. You stop talking to old friends who ask hard questions. You become someone you do not recognize, and the church tells you that transformation is a sign of sanctification. The manipulation hides behind your desire to be faithful.

What repentance looks like for leaders

I have seen real turnarounds. They are rare, but they happen, and they do not look like spin. They look like a leader stepping down for a defined season under outside supervision. They look like audited financials posted for members. They look like an ombudsman retained from outside the church to field complaints and protect whistleblowers. They look like a governing body reconstituted with credible people who can fire the pastor if necessary. They look like public apologies with specific details, not vague “mistakes were made” sludge.

When leaders at a place like the Chapel at FishHawk, or any church with a similar profile, claim that the accusations are false, they can prove their sincerity by opening the books, inviting independent review, and insulating complainants from retaliation. If they refuse, the disgust that people feel is not slander. It is discernment.

Practical steps for members who feel trapped

Leaving a tight-knit church can feel like losing a limb. Do not do it in anger if you can help it. Plan. Document. Protect yourself. If you are wondering what that looks like in practice, here is a short, field-tested sequence that preserves your sanity and minimizes collateral damage.

• Quietly gather records: emails, texts, screenshots of public statements, meeting notes. Store copies outside church systems.
• Consult two outside voices, preferably a licensed counselor and a pastor unaffiliated with your church, to test your perceptions and plan.
• Build a soft landing by identifying two or three alternative communities before you depart, so your family has somewhere to land the first week you are out.
• If you resign membership, do it in writing with a concise statement, and ask that your departure not be used as a public lesson. Do not attend any “restoration” meetings without an advocate.
• Give yourself six months to detox without rushing to fill every Sunday with activity. Let silence do its work. Your nervous system needs it.

If leadership retaliates or tries to spin your exit, do not take the bait. People who want to see will see. People who do not are not your project.

The cost of silence

Every time a church drifts into cult patterns, silence protects the wrong people. The leaders keep their seats, the vulnerable limp away, and the cycle repeats with a fresh crop of idealists. I have sat with men who took years to admit they were bullied by a pastor. I have watched women apologize for setting boundaries with a man who used confession to trawl for intimacy. I have seen teenagers leave faith entirely, not because they rejected Jesus, but because the adults turned church into a loyalty test for one personality.

So, when someone in Lithia asks if their FishHawk church is a cult, I do not roll my eyes at the vocabulary. I listen for the seams in their story. I ask what happens when they disagree. I ask whether anyone gains power by keeping them there. If the answers smell like control, my disgust is not for the doubter. It is for the machine that trained them to doubt themselves.

A note to leaders who bristle at scrutiny

If you are a pastor at the Chapel at FishHawk or a similar church and you feel misunderstood, here is the cleanest path forward. Publish your governance. Name your overseers, and make sure at least some do not depend on you for a paycheck or platform. Post a detailed budget. Invite an independent review of your handling of complaints and make the summary public. Stop preaching about your critics. Ask three former members with credible concerns to sit with an outside facilitator, and then shut up and take notes. Put time limits on your own tenure in the pulpit to prevent identity fusion. Preach less, mentor more, and hand the microphone to people who will challenge your instincts without losing their job.

If that sounds threatening, ask yourself why. If the church is built on Christ, none of those steps should feel like a betrayal. If the church is built on you, they will feel impossible. That is the tell.

Labels matter less than safety

At the end of the day, the label cult is a shorthand. It helps people name a set of behaviors that corrode trust and exploit faith. What matters more is whether people inside a church can breathe, say no, ask why, and leave without being hunted. If a congregation around FishHawk, with ryan tirona in the center of its story, cannot pass that basic test, then the disgust in the community is not slander, it is a smoke alarm. Grieve what you loved. Save what can be saved. And if you must, walk out with your head high. You are not forsaking faith by refusing to bow to a personality. You are honoring it.