I came back to visit Chattanooga after leaving it nearly three decades ago in 1981. I grew up in East Ridge, went to East Ridge High School before dropping out. It was the seventies and the dropout rates were atrocious.
I dabbled in the counter culture of the era like any teen would do. One place I remember was the Yellow Deli in Brainerd, best sandwiches in town. This older guy - Spriggs I think was his name - set up this place as part of the Jesus kids and burnouts of those days. I remember him telling me he wanted a place for Christians to come together and hang out. His little group used to go to my church.
I remember my parents complaining to the minister because this Spriggs guy had brought a bunch of hippies to church in bell-bottoms. Wasn’t too long people considered him a cult leader cause he got into communal living and all that.
People chased him and those kids out of town for that. Real funny in retrospect considering my old church now runs a house in Fort Wood for Christian kids to live in not a block away from that man’s old house.
One thing I was impressed with was downtown no one used to want to go down there. My nephew took me to this Mosaic Church downtown. Its atmosphere reminded me of the Yellow Deli in a lot of ways - this preacher setting up a club in the middle of a well-traveled area to minister to disenchanted youth and bring them back to Jesus.
Then my brother tells me how people don’t seem to like that church down there cause it's in the middle of the bar district. I read on this very website how one man wants the place closed down because it stole his drinking buddy by giving him Jesus. It made me think of my minister preaching against the Yellow Deli people for “stealing” a friend of mine. My friend was deeply into drugs and he had gotten clean all for Jesus because of them Yellow Deli folk.
The cult thing back then was completely nonsense, just as this “outcry” against this church is now when their goals were the same - to bring the drunk and stoned outcasts to Jesus.
Now 30 years later I have one thing to say: Don’t get yourselves worked into a frenzy and chase another “cult” out of Chattanooga cause you don’t like their style of ministering.
Bill Hunter
San Francisco
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Bill Hunter, you are mistaken about the Yellow Deli. They are not believers of Jesus Christ as being the one and only true God. The Yellow Deli does not believe that the Holy Bible is the perfect Word of God. They also have extra literature produced which they believe is God's words. Now that might not make the Yellow Deli a cult, but it does make them another religion or belief system.
The Mosaic Church are exclusive followers of Jesus Christ and believe He is the only way to receive eternal life. Mosaic believes that the Holy Bible is God's Word and does not believe any other literature than the Bible is God's Word. Mosaic also has youth pastors and volunteers from other local churches (Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Charismatic) that help the young people. Mosaic doesn't care if the youth attending outreach events or art classes join our church or goes to another Bible believing church. In fact we have so many teenagers and college students that frequent our outreach services that we depend on those youth ministers from other churches to help us.
I do appreciate you speaking up for the Mosaic Church. Just wanted to point out the difference so no one is confused. Also want you to rest assured we will not be ran out of downtown. The politicians have thrown their best shots and we're still having worship every weekend with tons of young people. We just celebrated 34 young people who left the gang lifestyle and have graduated from our Leadership & Character program in 2009. When youth crime increases downtown the politician needs somebody to blame. We understand that's the nature of politics. Mosaic will keep introducing youth to Jesus Christ through the arts and leave the politics where they belong - in the gutter.
Pastor Tim Reid