Choice L. Bryant
Dallas Morning News, The (TX) - November 12, 2000
Deceased Name: Choice L. Bryant, 90, dedicated his life to church
Services were Thursday for Choice L. Bryant, a lifelong Church of Christ
minister.
Mr. Bryant, 90, died Nov. 4 at Christian Care Center in Mesquite. "His life was
the church," said his daughter, Marca Lee Bircher of Dallas. "What was his
hobby? The church. What did he do for entertainment? He went to church
services."
Mr. Bryant was born May 10, 1910, in Throckmorton, Texas, and graduated from
Breckenridge High School in Breckenridge, Texas, in 1927. Mr. Bryant earned a
bachelor's degree from Abilene Christian College, now Abilene Christian
University, in the early 1930s. He worked his way through college selling Bibles
door-to-door and preached his first sermon on Easter Sunday in 1930 in McCaulley,
Texas. In 1935, he married his wife, Gladys Bryant of Dallas, in Fort Worth. His
70-year career in evangelism led him to churches in states including Texas,
Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Oregon.
Ms. Bircher said Mr. Bryant was a "rural Texas country preacher," who
established many small churches and congregations in the early years of his
ministry. "In those days, it was a missionary drive; he felt he had to provide
access to worship," his daughter said.
Mr. Bryant preached over the radio in the 1940s and 1950s and began a prison
ministry in Salem, Ore., that is thriving today, Ms. Bircher said. In the 1980s,
he wrote a series of articles about his life and ministry for a church magazine,
With All Boldness. He sang in traveling gospel quartets, conducted singing
lessons for congregations, performed at countless weddings and opened his home
to anyone who was hungry or in need of help, she added. In 1975, Mr. Bryant
moved his family to Arlington and later moved to Dallas. He was a full-time
preacher from 1975 to 1985 in Arlington and from 1985 to 1997 at the Northside
Church of Christ in Mansfield. "He preached his last sermon at a revival last
March," Ms. Bircher said. "He was very, very much a true spiritual man."
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