During his fourth year at Asbury, media communications TV and video production major and Spanish minor student Cooper Boss was joined by his little sister, Taylor. He adores being part of Friday Night Live, student film projects, the Asbury Review, and Asbury Chapel Production. Taylor is a freshman and has yet to declare a major, but she likes to be creative, just like her brother. Already, she has made an appearance as the love interest in a short film, “Masquerade.”
Their father, Larry Boss, majored in computer science at Asbury in 1987. Larry said, “My years at Asbury were the most formative of my entire life.”
He recounts the effect that the Fall Revival of 1985 had on him, saying, “I began pursuing Christ out of an internal passion that he had placed there.” It was here on these campus grounds that his faith and relationship with God took flight.
“Don’t sit back and wait for someone else to initiate or grow your relationship with God,” Larry said, directing his words to Asbury’s student body. “Whether there are many opportunities or few, excellent or poor, pursue a relationship with Jesus with your whole heart, and you will find him. Also, as you pursue him, don’t try to take the wheel. Ask God, beg him, to draw you close to him, and then follow his lead. You can’t generate through your effort the passion that only God can place in you. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, not you.”
Like their father, Cooper and Taylor are invested in their relationships with Christ, but they see ways the university could grow within Spiritual Life.
Taylor said, “I enjoy that there is a religious atmosphere, but I wish that bible studies and support was easier to access or find.”
Likewise, Cooper can acknowledge how the university has fallen short. He said, “I would critique Asbury’s approach to evangelism. Asbury doesn’t really have a great place for people to discuss differences in faith or opinion in a healthy way – and that becomes a problem when our culture, in general, is quickly learning the art of constructive debate.”
By looking at the Boss’s stories side by side, it is evident that Asbury is a place that changes lives. Yet, as they have said, Asbury holds the potential to grow, and it is the wish the Boss family declares for all Asbury students, no matter the circumstances.
