Youth Pastor Botham Jean was shot to death in his own apartment over the weekend after a police officer reportedly mistook the home as hers.
Jean, who was a youth pastor at Dallas West Church of Christ, was shot to death on Thursday by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger.
Guyger has been charged with manslaughter.
“Botham never saw color, he never saw race. Botham wanted all of us to unite, to be together,” Jean’s mother, Allison Jean, told a vigil gathered at the church on Saturday.
Jeremy Bonner told the crowd that Jean was like the great heroes of the Bible. According to the Dallas News, Jean, like John the Baptist, evangelized every day. Like Paul, he gave his friends spiritual guidance. And now, like Samson, he has become a martyr.
“Your son was the spiritual tip of the spear … the epitome of ‘send me and I’ll go,’ ” Bonner told Allison.
The Dallas News also reports Jean loved Christian music, especially Michael W. Smith, and sought to serve on a daily basis.
Friends say Jean had sought leadership positions while he was at Harding University. He worked as a resident assistant, ran for student body president, mentored a men’s group and led worship sessions every change he got.
Former classmate Romas Roberson said Jean was “a positive leader for the young men that we had here.”
Most every student on the small campus recognized his voice from his leadership of daily chapel services.
His senior-year mentor Tommy Bush said the Bible verse that Jean referenced most frequently as he finished his senior year studying technology and business was 2 Corinthians 16-18. It reads: “Therefore we do not lose heart … We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
A GoFundMe created for Jean’s family calls the man, “a great Christian example and inspiration to us all.”
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings asked for prayer for the Jean family as they mourn his loss.
My statement on tonight’s arrest of Amber Guyger pic.twitter.com/pIfToTpSsN
— Mike Rawlings (@Mike_Rawlings) Sept. 10, 2018
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