Another Bossman story

A couple of months ago I read 12 Who Changed the World, a book about Jesus’ disciples written by Morris Inch. It was “ok”…(I don’t want to make this a book review), but there is one point he made about the 12 that I’ve returned to. Jesus seemed to surround himself not with people who he needed to motivate, but with people who, because of their excessive passion and exuberance, often needed to be restrained or channeled into a productive direction. If you read the gospels without sunday school glasses you see that the disciples didn’t always set the bar very high in terms of common sense and obedience! They boldy made many mistakes which Jesus turned them into learning experiences – for them and us.

Last week I wrote about Pastor Bossman, another man with baffling amounts of passion and exuberance for Jesus and YLI. He called me two Friday’s ago to tell me that he was going to organize two YLI meetings on Sunday afternoon, invite 50 people to come, and he didn’t want anything from me except my prayers. I was slightly concerned about him organizing an event using the YLI name. Bossman hasn’t gone through any official YLI training and we don’t encourage people to organize “YLI meetings” anyway. But, I felt like I needed to just pray for him and let God take care of it, and reluctantly that is what I did.

But on Saturday, my concerned grew. I thought that maybe I should call him to tell him that its ok to hold his meeting, but please don’t use the YLI name. However, I prayed for him instead.

Then, Sunday morning I got a call from our coach Naomi. She told me that she was unexpectedly back in Sunyani and was preparing for church. I told her about Bossman’s plans and my concerns to which she said, “Don’t worry Ash, I’ll go over to help support him”. Immediately I felt relieved and thankful that I chose to pray for Bossman rather than discourage him.

After the meeting Naomi and Bossman called me. And they were very excited. Naomi helped lead Bossman’s new small discipleship groups, teaching them about what it means to love people like Jesus and grow as disciples. A couple of people who weren’t Christians also showed up, but left as new creations, knowing full well who Jesus is! The groups are going to continue meeting regularly under Naomi and Bossman’s leadership.

Bossman, I think, is a disciple in the mold of the 12 – the kind of person Jesus chose to fulfill the most important mission in the world.