Kevin Pounds' blog

Christin and I are so excited that our baby daughter Wren is finally here!  Wren Constance Pounds was born Tuesday morning, May 10, 6:38 a.m., weighing in at 7 lb 14 oz.  Below are a few pics with Wren at the hospital and one with Jude swinging his new baby sister.  You can find more pics on my facebook page.

Christin was amazing through the whole pregnancy and especially the delivery.  She went 100% natural- no drugs and no pain killers.  I’m impressed with my wife for many reasons, and this only cemented her status as one of my heroes.

A few people have asked about the name.  Well we chose Wren because it’s one syllable, it’s unique, and we like the sound of it.  We chose Constance in honor of Christin’s paternal grandmother who we fondly call “Nanny.”  She is such a Godly lady and much of Christin’s spiritual heritage is a result of her Nanny and Paw Paw’s commitment to Jesus.

So I’m taking a few days off to hang with the family.  We’re so blessed to have Christin’s mom, Cheryl, in town.  Having her is like bringing in the heavy artillery.  It’s freeing us up to enjoy being parents together for a few days before the rush of life and ministry comes again.  As always, thank you for your continued prayers as we parent our children and as Jude adjusts to a new baby taking over some of his space. 

It seems pretty clear from reading the New Testament book of Acts that the early church, despite its many faults, was driven by an apostolic impulse.  The word apostle literally means “one who is sent out,” and we can easily see from the narrative in Acts that the church took a “sent and scattered” approach to ministry.  Whenever the church became too centralized or inward focused,  God allowed persecution to move the process forward.  As I look at the American church, I often see a struggle with taking a sent and scattered approach to ministry- especially when it requires a radical change in mindset, ministry strategy, and use of resources.  Although I’m knee deep in helping start churches in relatively unchurched communities, I find myself sometimes internally struggling to throw off the status quo of comfort zone Christianity to embrace this apostolic impulse which should still drive us today.  This has led to me asking myself a tough question as both a church-planter and Jesus-follower…

What prevents us from taking a more sent and scattered approach to ministry?

Control issues. I’m pretty sure that beginning with the day of Pentecost that the twelve apostles and other 120 followers of Jesus realized that this Jesus movement was going to be something way bigger than anything they could control.  It’s easy to assume as we look at scripture that because the apostles and elders of the early church gave some pretty clear (and sometimes strict) parameters to people wanting to become Jesus followers and even more-so to other leaders, that they were all about control.  We must remember that this was way before the time of instant communication via phones, text messaging, and emails, with letters taking weeks and months to reach their destination. This communication gap forced the early church leaders to put a great deal of trust in those they had mentored and sent out.  Does a lack of control open the door for people to go “off the farm” with their mission and even theology? It’s certainly a possibility, but even in the most controlling church environments this happens more than we’d like to admit- just look at the number of church splits that occur over these issues.

Trusting leaders. I think one reason we may struggle to trust emerging leaders is that we have not put the time into mentoring and developing them.  One big reason that Jesus trusted the apostles was because of the power of the Holy Spirit working through them.  We should also consider the obvious fact that He trusted them as leaders because He had invested a great deal of time and energy in developing them as leaders.  We see this same confidence from Paul in his letters to Titus and Timothy.  Paul had invested in these guys and trusted them to not only lead but to develop others who would lead.  In our present era we cannot simply delegate the responsibility of developing a new generation of Christian leaders to Bible colleges or seminaries- I would argue that the best context for learning still remains local churches doing real ministry in the real world.  I’m not arguing against the value of theological training, but I do believe that the people most likely to influence culture and engage those outside the church are not ordained vocational clergy.

Minimizing relationships. We can easily forget that the primary vehicle through which the good news of Jesus travels is relationships.  Two thousand years ago the Greco-Roman household or oikos provided the perfect relational network of close friends and family members for the gospel to go viral.  In the modern era, studies have continued to prove that the primary influence on people coming to faith in Jesus is relationships with family and friends.  When we act like a program, a worship service, or even our preaching is the key to people becoming followers of Jesus, then we’re actually putting our focus (and usually investing our resources) in the exception rather than the norm.  I’m definitely  a big fan of gospel-centered preaching, but I’m also certain that the overwhelming majority of our culture is deaf to what is being said from our Sunday morning pulpits.  As a friend recently shared with me: “relationships are the currency of the kingdom.”

“Old” paradigms. As much as we try, it’s hard to move beyond our default perspective of what church is- a large group of people gathered in one place on Sunday with a lectern as the focal point of where ministry happens.  In a culture where even the most irreligious person defines a church as a building with a steeple, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine that the Jesus movement met as churches for the first 200+ years without buildings set aside as places of worship.  Somehow this ancient idea that the church is the people of God on mission with God has been somewhat lost despite the fact that the New Testament never refers to the church as a literal building.  Please understand that I’m not suggesting that established churches tear down buildings and sell off all their property (well… unless these things are preventing real ministry from happening).  What I am saying is that if we are going to engage an increasingly nonChristian culture then we will have to have an open hand with our approach to ministry and go way back (like 2000 years back) to what made the church the church.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and even get some “push back.”

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from David Medina, a good friend and church-planter in California.  In his email he shared the following:

I can genuinely say for the first time since we started, that numbers in that regard do not matter to our heart. It’s hard to explain, but I am so grateful to Jesus for being patient with us, and leading us to a place where we can be full of integrity in announcing to the world, and to our surrounding church co-laborers, that it is ALL about Jesus. We are whole-heartedly focused on our (as Piper says) our vertical relationship first, and then learning how to “bend” that vertical fruit of love out to all of our horizontal relationships.

For the past week and a half, these statements have been haunting me.  I cannot get them off of my mind.  Although as a Jesus-follower and pastor I wear the Jesus label, I have been forced to ask is it ALL really about Jesus?

What would my life and ministry look like if I focused on my vertical relationship first and then learned to bend that vertical fruit of love to all of my horizontal relationships?

Is the life I’m living, the family we’re growing, the relationships I’m building, and the ministry I’m starting all really about Jesus?

Am I trying to pray God into my agenda and my plans or am I faithfully responding to who He is and what He’s doing?

What if following God’s path leads to greater suffering and sacrifice than I anticipated- is Jesus worth that much to me?

Is everything in my horizontal life the overflow of a vibrant vertical love relationship with Jesus?

I desperately want the answer to be yes.   I want to be a the point where I can fully agree with what the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith– that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

I appreciate your prayers in this matter.

Please pray that I would consider everything a loss compared to knowing Jesus.

Please pray that my marriage to Christin, my relationships with Jude and Wren (our soon to be born daughter), my friendships, and my ministry would all be the byproduct of bending this vertical relationship with Jesus.

Please pray that I would never use Jesus as means to an end in doing ministry or serving others-I want it to be ALL about Jesus.

Please pray that others would see the life of Jesus in me, on the good days and especially during the difficult times.

As I was watching my little boy Jude crawl down the stairs today, I was overwhelmed with a sense of thankfulness for the gift of life.  The life God has given Jude.  The new life God is soon bringing to my family.  The life God has given to me personally.  If knowing joy means I must experience sadness, if knowing peace means I must experience pain, if knowing love means I must experience rejection, and if knowing life means I must experience decay and one day death… I’ll take it.  Thousands of years ago God challenged the Israelites with a simple put profound choice: see, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. (Deuteronomy 30:15)

I choose life.

Thank you God for giving us a choice.  Thank you for offering us life.

Through the cross…

Jesus gives Himself as a ransom.

Jesus forgives our trespasses.

Jesus erases our debt.

Jesus liberates us from sin.

Jesus frees us from our futile ways.

Jesus reconciles us to God.

Jesus reconciles enmity between people.

Jesus reconciles all things on heaven and earth to Himself.

Jesus pays our penalty and removes our guilt.

Jesus appeases God’s wrath and justice.

Jesus upholds God’s righteousness.

Jesus secures our redemption for eternity.

Jesus models the ultimate denial of self.

Jesus displays God’s power for our salvation.

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15