[1]NEW ORLEANS (BP)–Jerry Wayne Pounds Sr. has been named assistant to the president at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
“With a deep love for our seminary and our city, Dr. Jerry Pounds will do a marvelous job helping me serve the needs of the NOBTS family,” said Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Seminary since March 1996.
Pounds, a New Orleans native, comes to his new position after chairing the seminary’s division of Christian education ministries since August 1997. In June 1997 seminary trustees re-elected him associate professor of Christian education, having previously been a faculty member from 1988-93 and director of the seminary’s office of continuing education from 1990-93. Pounds was associate pastor for administration at First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, S.C., from 1994-97.
As a new member of the seminary’s administrative council, Pounds will take up many of the responsibilities previously assigned to former Executive Vice President Mark Foley, who became president of the University of Mobile on March 2. Those responsibilities include maintaining institutional effectiveness, representing the seminary at speaking engagements and other functions, and special projects assigned by the president. Pounds will continue teaching Christian education courses, but at a reduced load.
A specialist in the areas of parenting, family relationships and marriage enrichment, Pounds is certified both in child custody mediation and in conflict management in the church, for which he received additional training this year at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, Calif.
Over the past decade Pounds has been a prolific author of books, manuals, devotionals and articles for Southern Baptists, mainly on topics related to teenagers, parenting youth and stepparenting.
In 1997 he co-wrote “Discover the Winning Edge” with William Mitchell and a revised edition of “Christian Self-Esteem: Parenting” by Grace with Kathryn Chapman and Diana Garland. Both books are published by Broadman & Holman Publishers of the SBC’s LifeWay Christian Resources.
Pounds was a youth minister at churches in Alabama, Colorado, Mississippi and Tennessee from 1974-86 and an editor for youth publications at the Baptist Sunday School Board from 1982-86. He was an assistant professor of religion at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., from 1986-88, where he also was a counselor for Barnabas House Christian Counseling Center.
Pounds and his wife, the former Bayne Bagdanovich of Jacksonville, Fla., both earned bachelor’s degree from Samford University in 1977. In 1979, when they each completed the master of religious education degree at New Orleans Seminary, they dually received the seminary’s Outstanding Religious Education Student Award.
Each has completed a doctor of education degree; Pounds graduated from Vanderbilt University’s George Peabody College in Nashville, Tenn., with a specialization in human development counseling in 1989 and his wife graduated from New Orleans Seminary in 1993 with a specialization in adolescent development.
They co-wrote “How to Use This Bible” for The Family Worship Bible, produced in 1991 by B&H.
The Poundses have two teenage children: Rebecca, a senior; and Jerry Jr., a sophomore.
“We have had many chances to live elsewhere, and this is the place we have chosen to be,” Pounds said. “We want to be here and we want to make an impact for our Lord in this city and in this state, and beyond.”