“Traditional Churches Asleep Friday And Saturday Nights,” Pastor Reid Says
by Judy Frank
posted October 27, 2006
For Tim Reid, the teen years were rough. And he said he is trying to reach other troubled teens with his Mosaic church and Club Fathom Christian nightclub downtown.
“I was kicked out of Baylor,” he told members of the Brainerd Kiwanis Club on Friday. “I was kicked out of McCallie. My parents were thinking about home schooling me, but I liked girls too much and I talked them out of that. Eventually, I went to Red Bank High School. It was kind of my last chance.”
The pivotal day in his life occurred soon afterward, when he bought Metallica’s Master of the Puppets album and spent hours listening to it. That night, he sneaked out of the house and went to see the horror movie, “Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“Somehow," he recalled, “God used that horror movie and that album to speak to me and show me I was a slave to sin. That night, after the movie, I went home and gave my heart to Christ.”
These days, as pastor of Mosaic – an interdenominational church in downtown Chattanooga – he devotes his life to trying to reach troubled teens and other groups with little or no traditional religious training: street people, artists, gang members, individuals whose mere appearance might get them thrown out of a more conventional church.
Further, his church sponsors a unique outreach: Club Fathom, a 36,000-square-foot nightclub for teenagers located near the corner of Market and Fourth, right in the heart of Chattanooga’s touristy downtown.
The club sells neither alcoholic drinks nor tobacco products but still draws about 500 people on Friday and Saturday nights to listen to the music and enjoy the atmosphere.
“Sometimes it gets rough,” Pastor Reid said. “I understand these are not all good, wholesome people . . . so we just try to love them through it.”
Club Fathom’s unusual approach has allowed it to reach groups that more conventional religious outreach efforts miss, Pastor Reid said.
“Traditional churches are asleep on Friday and Saturday nights,” he said. “Somebody needs to be awake . . . and so God placed us there right in the middle of Chattanooga . . . We’re right in the middle of Party Central.”
Sometimes, Club Fathom customers bring weapons or drugs or alcohol along with them when they arrive. Sometimes, after they leave, they get into fights with customers of the other nightspots in the area or run into trouble with the police. Sometimes, their troubles make headlines and the club gets blistered with bad publicity.
But sometimes, come Sunday morning, they show up to worship at Mosaic, his church.
Mosaic takes its name from the art form: broken pieces of glass that seem to have little value at first glance, but “when you bring them all together they make a beautiful picture.”
About 100 worshippers attend Mosaic’s Sunday morning and Sunday evening services, Pastor Reid said. Some of them are dressed in their Sunday best; others wear barely-there miniskirts or other inappropriate clothing.
All are welcome.
“I’m not worried about their mini-skirts, or their smoking,” he said. “My focus is to bring them to Christ. Once that happens, the rest will follow.”
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