One of my heroes in the church is Wallace Chappell, who died just a few years ago. For a time he was Senior Pastor at First United Methodist Church in 
Charlotte, but mainly ministered in-and-around Nashville. Wallace used to tell the story of a Presbyterian minister in Birmingham whom everyone affectionately called “Brother Bryan.” The former President of Queens College, Dr. Hunter Blakely, wrote a book about him called Religion in Shoes.
Brother Bryan was always moving along the streets of the city saying to people, “Let’s pray together.” Now he wasn’t an extreme fundamentalist preacher; he was a Princeton graduate who came to Birmingham to spend the weekend, and ended up staying the rest of his life in the heart of that city. At Five Points in Birmingham, there is a statue of a Presbyterian minister on his 
knees: Brother Bryan.
When he came down to the end of his life, he was lying on his final bed of pain, and the doctor heard him say, “So many people! So many people! So many people!” Thinking the crowd of people in the room was bothering him, the doctor chased most of them out, and then Brother Bryan breathed his last, saying, “So many people . . . in Birmingham, still lost . . . still lost . . . still lost.”
And they’re out there in our very community, and they’re next door, and they’re down the street, and they’re lonely, and they’re lost, and they need Jesus Christ. They may never find Him, unless Imagine Church finds them. They have to see Christ in my life, and in yours. Who’s going to to do that in this community, besides the church?
Leading people to Christ may not be the only business of the church, but it’s the main business of the church.
