Samford’s new Christian ministry program announces first faculty

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Samford’s new Christian ministry program announces first faculty

Samford University in Birmingham has named the first two full-time faculty members for the new Christian ministry degree program. J.D. Payne, of Birmingham, will begin his work at Samford in August, and Galen Jones, of Shawnee, Oklahoma, will join the program’s faculty in January 2019.
The new degree program was first announced in summer 2017 and the first classes will be offered this fall.

Payne comes to Samford from The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, having served there since 2012 as the pastor of church multiplication and, most recently, as the interim global disciple-making pastor. Jones currently teaches at Oklahoma Baptist University, where he has served since 2013 as assistant professor of church planting and as Floyd K. Clark Chair of Christian Leadership.

Deeply significant development

Scott Guffin, executive director of Samford’s Christian ministry program, noted that the addition of Payne and Jones to Samford’s faculty is a deeply significant development in the direction of the program.

Prior to coming to Birmingham, Payne served for 10 years as associate professor of church planting and evangelism at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For nine of those years, he also was a national missionary with the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board (NAMB) and directed the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting.
“J.D. comes to us as a world-class scholar and highly sought-after expert in the field of missiology,” Guffin said. “He brings with him a mix of scholarship and real-world ministry that will inform our students in both the study and the practice of missions and disciple making.”

Jones has been a missionary with NAMB since 2007 and previously worked as a church planting strategist, coordinator and consultant in Alabama and Georgia. From 1993 to 2001, Jones was director of the Urban Ministry Training Project in Cincinnati, Ohio. He also has served in a variety of roles in churches in Ohio, Kentucky and Oklahoma.

“Galen describes himself as a ‘scholar-pastor,’ and as such he prepares his students for ministry by instructing them at both head and heart levels,” Guffin said. “Through his work in church planting, church leadership and academics, he will bring to our students a depth and breadth of experience that will benefit them greatly as they train for engagement in ministry and missions.” (Samford)