J.D. Payne serves as a professor of Christian Ministry at Samford University. Prior to this, he was the pastor for church multiplication with The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, AL. Before that, he served with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and as an Associate Professor of Church Planting and Evangelism at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also directed the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting.
Leaders of five organizations had initiated GACX in September 2011.