James David “J.D.” Greear (born May 1, 1973) is an American Baptist pastor, author, and theologian. He serves as the lead pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, a congregation he has led since 2002.
Under his leadership, The Summit Church has grown from around 300 attendees to more than 12,000, with 13 campuses across the Triangle area.
He served as the 63rd president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2018 to 2021. Greear holds a Ph.D. in Theology from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and has written more than a dozen books.
He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A and hosts the daily radio broadcast Summit Life.
J.D. Greear at a Glance
| Personal | |
|---|---|
| Full Name | James David Greear |
| Born | May 1, 1973, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA |
| Age | 53 (as of 2026) |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | Veronica Greear |
| Children | Kharis, Alethia, Ryah, Adon |
| Education | |
| Bible College | Word of Life Bible Institute |
| University | Campbell University (BA, Communications) |
| Seminary | Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (MA, PhD — Christian & Islamic Theology, 2003) |
| Ministry | |
| Title | Lead Pastor |
| Church | The Summit Church, Raleigh-Durham, NC |
| Denomination | Southern Baptist Convention |
| Pastor Since | 2002 |
| Ordained | 1999 |
| SBC President | 2018–2021 (63rd President) |
| Website | jdgreear.com |
| Career | |
| Books | 13+ published titles |
| Net Worth | ~$1M–$5M (estimated; not publicly confirmed) |
| Salary | Not publicly disclosed |
| Board Member | Chick-fil-A (since January 2022) |
Early Life and Background
Growing Up in Winston-Salem
J.D. Greear was born on May 1, 1973, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He grew up in a Christian household where faith was part of everyday life. His parents instilled in him a love for Scripture and a desire to serve God from an early age.
As a teenager, Greear wrestled with one of the most personal questions a young believer can face: how do you know you are actually saved? He would repeatedly pray the sinner’s prayer, hoping the anxiety would finally lift.
That struggle with salvation assurance became one of the defining themes of his theology and his most well-known book decades later.
Education and Formation
Greear attended Word of Life Bible Institute before earning a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina.
He then enrolled at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, where he completed both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D.
His doctoral dissertation focused on Christian and Islamic theology, examining the correlations between early church gospel presentations and Islamic theology.
He graduated in 2003 with a doctorate in Philosophy. This academic background later shaped his passion for cross-cultural missions, particularly among Muslim populations.
Before settling into pastoral ministry, Greear spent time serving as a missionary in Southeast Asia through the International Mission Board. Living among Muslims abroad gave him a burden that never quite left him.
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Ministry and Career Journey
Early Ministry: Youth Pastor and Church Planter
Greear began ministry in his early twenties as a youth pastor at Open Door Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was ordained in 1999. From there, he sensed a call to plant a church rather than inherit one.
In 2002, at age 28, he became the pastor of a struggling congregation in Durham, North Carolina, that had plateaued at around 300 people. He didn’t just take the job. He relaunched the church entirely, renaming it The Summit Church.
Building The Summit Church
What happened next was not overnight. It was the result of a decade of intentional, gospel-centered ministry combined with a strategy that few churches at the time had the nerve to try: sending people away on purpose.
Within three years of launching, attendance had grown enough that The Summit Church had to sell its original facility and move services to Riverside High School in Durham. That was a sign of things to come.
Starting in 2005, Greear adopted a multi-site model, expanding the church across the Raleigh-Durham Triangle rather than building one mega-campus.
The model used video-cast preaching from the main campus alongside local campus pastors who also preach and lead. The goal was simple: no one in the Triangle should live more than 15 minutes from a Summit location.
Today, The Summit Church operates 13 campuses across the Triangle area, including the flagship Capital Hills Campus off Capital Boulevard in Raleigh.
The church also holds Spanish-language and Mandarin-language services, and runs two congregations in local prisons. Weekly attendance runs close to 12,000 people.
The Summit Church’s Sending Vision
Growth in attendance is not the number Greear talks about most. The number he keeps coming back to is the one that went out the door.
The Summit Church has planted over 700 churches and sent more than 2,000 church members to be part of those plants, including 744 members who have gone internationally. The church’s stated goal is to plant 1,000 new churches by 2050.
Greear has called this the “sending culture” and wrote a whole book about it. His philosophy, captured in the title Gaining by Losing, is that a church’s health is measured by how many people it sends, not by how many it keeps.
This approach to church planting aligns with the ethos of the broader evangelical church-planting movement and draws comparisons to networks like Acts 29, though The Summit operates within the SBC framework.
Faculty Role at SEBTS
Alongside his pastoral work, Greear has served as a faculty member at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he has written and taught on the connections between early Christian mission and Islamic theology.
This dual role as pastor and scholar has shaped his reputation as a serious theological thinker, not just a communicator.
SBC Presidency (2018–2021)
In 2018, J.D. Greear was elected the 63rd president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States with over 15 million members and nearly 47,000 churches.
His election marked a generational shift in SBC leadership. He was relatively young, came from a church-planting background, and campaigned on themes of racial and ethnic diversity.
Greear had actually been nominated for SBC president in 2016 as well, but withdrew his name on the third ballot to endorse another candidate, prioritizing denominational unity. Two years later, he ran again and won.
He was re-elected in 2019 by acclamation, running uncontested. When the SBC’s 2020 annual meeting was canceled due to COVID-19, his term was extended a third year, making his total presidency June 2018 to June 2021. He was succeeded by Ed Litton.
During his presidency, Greear pushed for greater racial and ethnic diversity among SBC leadership and appointed people from underrepresented backgrounds to key committee roles. He also faced the hardest issue of his tenure: the sexual abuse crisis.
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Controversies and Challenges
The SBC Sexual Abuse Crisis
Early in Greear’s presidency, the Houston Chronicle published an explosive investigation into sexual abuse within Southern Baptist churches.
The report identified roughly 380 ministers and volunteers who had been credibly accused, convicted, or had confessed to sexual misconduct since 1998, with more than 700 total victims documented across two decades.
Greear’s response was immediate and public. He called the abuses “pure evil” and said he was “broken” by what the investigation revealed.
He did not defend the institution. He publicly stated that Southern Baptists needed to “repent of appealing to autonomy as a cover-up for lack of accountability,” a direct challenge to the SBC’s long-standing reluctance to act on member church abuse cases.
He formed a Sexual Abuse Prevention Study Group in partnership with the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
He pushed for the possibility of a database of credibly accused ministers. He named specific churches in a report and recommended those warranting further inquiry to the SBC Executive Committee.
At the 2019 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, Greear led a public prayer of lament for abuse survivors. The moment was widely noted.
Critics on one side felt the SBC moved too slowly; others argued Greear overstepped the denomination’s polity. In the final months of his term, leaked letters from former SBC ethicist Russell Moore alleged that some denominational leaders had actively resisted reform efforts.
Greear acknowledged at the end of his tenure that more progress was needed. The abuse reckoning he helped begin continued well after he left office.
Political and Cultural Questions
Greear has been outspoken about keeping Baptist churches focused on the gospel rather than partisan politics. In a 2018 appearance on PBS’s Firing Line, he addressed evangelical support for Donald Trump and the relationship between faith and political affiliation.
He has consistently pushed back against the idea that the SBC should function as a political bloc, which has drawn criticism from both sides of that debate.
J.D. Greear’s Theology and Beliefs
Greear is a Reformed Southern Baptist evangelical. His theology is shaped by several convictions that run through all of his writing and preaching.
At the center is the gospel as the organizing principle of church life. He is famous for quoting himself on this: “The gospel is not merely the diving board off of which we jump into the pool of Christianity — it’s also the pool itself.”
That is not just a catchy line. It reflects his view that the gospel is not a starting point to move past, but a permanent reality that shapes every part of Christian life and community.
Greear holds a high view of Scripture, a complementarian position on church leadership, and a deep commitment to global missions.
He is particularly burdened for Muslims coming to faith in Christ, a burden rooted in his time in Southeast Asia and his doctoral work.
On salvation assurance, Greear broke from the standard evangelical formula. His book Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart argues that assurance of salvation is not found in remembering a single prayer, but in the ongoing posture of trust and repentance.
This was a significant pastoral contribution, especially in Baptist contexts where “praying the prayer” had become almost sacramental.
He also holds a strong view of the church as a sending community, not a consuming one. He has shaped The Summit Church around the idea that the measure of a healthy church is not attendance or budget, but how many people it sends into ministry, church planting, and mission.
Books by J.D. Greear
Greear is a prolific author. His books span pastoral theology, gospel-centered living, prayer, and evangelism. His most recent release is Everyday Revolutionary (2025).
| Year | Title | Subject |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Gospel: Recovering the Power That Made Christianity Revolutionary | The gospel as the center of Christian life |
| 2013 | Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved | Salvation assurance |
| 2014 | Jesus, Continued…: Why the Spirit Inside You Is Better than Jesus Beside You | The Holy Spirit |
| 2015 | Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches That Send | Church planting and sending culture |
| 2018 | Not God Enough: Why Your Small God Is the Biggest Problem in Your Life | The character of God |
| 2019 | Above All: Life-Changing Reflections on the Lord’s Prayer | Prayer |
| 2020 | What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? | Calling and vocation |
| 2020 | Searching for Christmas | Advent devotional |
| 2021 | Just Ask: God’s Extraordinary Response to Ordinary Prayers | Prayer |
| 2023 | Essential Christianity: The Heart of the Gospel in Ten Words | Evangelism and core doctrine |
| 2023 | 12 Truths & a Lie: Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions | Apologetics and worldview |
| 2025 | Everyday Revolutionary | Christian mission in everyday life |
His most widely read titles are Gospel (2011), Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart (2013), and Gaining by Losing (2015).
Among Reformed Baptist readers in particular, Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart is the book most often recommended on the question of salvation assurance.
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Summit Life Broadcast and Ask the Pastor Podcast
Summit Life is Greear’s daily 30-minute radio broadcast, featuring gospel-centered teaching drawn from his preaching at The Summit Church.
It airs nationally and is also available as a weekly TV program. The broadcast is produced by J.D. Greear Ministries, the organization that oversees his broader media and publishing work.
The Ask the Pastor podcast features Greear answering theological, cultural, and practical questions from a biblical perspective.
It is part of the Summit Life ministry and has built a following among listeners who want pastoral answers to real questions rather than polished talking points.
Greear founded J.D. Greear Ministries as the formal umbrella for these media efforts, separate from The Summit Church itself.
Personal Life: Veronica Greear and Family
Who Is Veronica Greear?
Veronica Greear is J.D. Greear’s wife. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and taught high school for several years before the couple began having children.
She is actively involved in ministry at The Summit Church and is known in the Summit community as a thoughtful, engaged presence in the church’s life.
J.D. and Veronica live in Raleigh, North Carolina. On his website, Greear describes her as “beautiful, relatable, fun, and passionate.”
They have been married since before his pastoral career at The Summit and have built their family life alongside the church’s growth.
Children
J.D. and Veronica Greear have four children: Kharis, Alethia, Ryah, and Adon. Greear regularly mentions his family in his preaching and writing, and his approach to ministry has always been shaped by the conviction that a pastor’s first congregation is his home.
J.D. Greear’s Net Worth and Salary
J.D. Greear’s salary as Lead Pastor of The Summit Church is not publicly disclosed. The church does not release pastoral compensation figures.
Any salary number you find online is an estimate based on benchmarks for churches of similar size, not confirmed data.
Online estimates for his net worth range from $1 million to $5 million, drawing on his church leadership income, book royalties, speaking engagements, and the Summit Life media ministry.
Greear has also served on the Board of Directors of Chick-fil-A since January 2022. Chick-fil-A is a private company that does not disclose board compensation publicly, so that income stream adds to his overall financial picture without a verifiable figure attached to it.
None of these figures have been confirmed by Greear or The Summit Church. Treat any specific number as an informed estimate, not fact.
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Interesting Facts About J.D. Greear
- His full name is James David Greear. He has gone by J.D. throughout his public ministry.
- As a teenager, he repeatedly prayed the sinner’s prayer because he could not feel certain of his salvation. That experience eventually became the foundation of his most influential book.
- He served as a missionary in Southeast Asia before planting The Summit Church, working among Muslim communities.
- His Ph.D. dissertation examined the relationship between early Christian gospel presentations and Islamic theology, giving him a scholarly foundation for his missions theology.
- He was first nominated for SBC president in 2016, then withdrew in the third ballot round to support another candidate rather than split the vote.
- The Summit Church has sent more than 2,000 members to serve in church plants domestically and internationally.
- He sits on the Chick-fil-A board of directors, one of the more unusual corporate connections in the evangelical pastoral world.
- He is a council member of The Gospel Coalition.
- The Summit Church runs two congregations inside prisons in the Triangle area, as well as Spanish and Mandarin worship services.
J.D. Greear Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1973 | Born May 1 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
| ~1990s | Attended Word of Life Bible Institute |
| ~1995 | Earned BA in Communications from Campbell University |
| ~1996–1998 | Served as a missionary in Southeast Asia with the International Mission Board |
| ~1997–1999 | Served as youth pastor at Open Door Baptist Church, Raleigh |
| 1999 | Ordained; enrolled in Ph.D. program at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary |
| 2002 | Became pastor of a struggling Durham congregation; relaunched it as The Summit Church |
| 2003 | Completed Ph.D. in Theology (Christian and Islamic Theology) at SEBTS |
| 2005 | The Summit Church began its multi-site expansion model |
| 2011 | Published Gospel, his breakthrough book |
| 2013 | Published Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart |
| 2015 | Published Gaining by Losing |
| 2016 | Nominated for SBC president; withdrew to support another candidate |
| June 2018 | Elected 63rd president of the Southern Baptist Convention |
| 2019 | Re-elected SBC president by acclamation; led prayer of lament for abuse survivors at SBC annual meeting |
| 2020 | SBC annual meeting canceled (COVID-19); term extended a third year |
| June 2021 | Completed SBC presidency; succeeded by Ed Litton |
| January 2022 | Joined the Chick-fil-A Board of Directors |
| 2023 | Published Essential Christianity and 12 Truths & a Lie |
| 2025 | Published Everyday Revolutionary |
J.D. Greear and The Summit Church — Capital Hills Campus
The Capital Hills Campus is The Summit Church’s main campus and the hub of its multi-site operation. Located off Capital Boulevard in Raleigh, it is a modern building that houses Greear’s primary preaching and broadcast ministry.
The campus includes a green room used as a study space by Greear before services. It’s where Summit Life content is primarily produced and where Greear based his work through the SBC presidency years.
The Capital Hills location is the physical anchor of The Summit Church’s identity, even as the church operates across 13 campuses.
When people search for “The Summit Church Capital Hills Campus,” they are typically looking for service times, location details, or information about Greear’s primary ministry base. That is the right place to find it.
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Disambiguation: Solid Rock Church
Some searches for “J.D. Greear” and “Solid Rock Church” appear together in keyword data, but J.D. Greear has no known connection to any church called Solid Rock Church.
His church is The Summit Church, headquartered in Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina. “Solid Rock Church” is a name used by multiple unrelated congregations across the United States.
If you landed here looking for a church by that name, it is not associated with Greear or The Summit Church.
Frequently Asked Questions About J.D. Greear
How old is J.D. Greear?
J.D. Greear was born on May 1, 1973, making him 53 years old as of 2026. He was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and has spent most of his adult life in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.
Who is J.D. Greear married to?
J.D. Greear is married to Veronica Greear. Veronica is a University of Virginia graduate who taught high school before they began raising their family. The couple live in Raleigh, North Carolina, and have four children together: Kharis, Alethia, Ryah, and Adon.
What happened to J.D. Greear?
Nothing negative happened. J.D. Greear completed his three-year term as SBC president in June 2021 and returned to leading The Summit Church full-time. He has continued preaching, writing books, and broadcasting Summit Life. His most recent book, Everyday Revolutionary, was published in 2025. He remains the lead pastor of The Summit Church.
What is J.D. Greear’s net worth?
J.D. Greear’s net worth has not been officially confirmed. Online estimates range from $1 million to $5 million, based on his pastoral income, book royalties, speaking engagements, and his board seat at Chick-fil-A. None of these figures are verified.
What is J.D. Greear’s salary?
J.D. Greear’s salary is not publicly disclosed. The Summit Church does not release pastoral compensation information. Industry benchmarks for megachurch pastors of comparable profile suggest figures in the range of $200,000–$300,000 annually, but this is an estimate, not a confirmed number.
Where is J.D. Greear from?
J.D. Greear is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He grew up there before attending Word of Life Bible Institute and Campbell University. He has lived and ministered in the Raleigh-Durham area since the late 1990s.
What controversies have surrounded J.D. Greear?
The most significant controversy surrounding Greear relates to how the SBC handled sexual abuse within its churches during his presidency. He responded to the 2019 Houston Chronicle investigation by calling for accountability and forming a study group, but critics argued change came too slowly. Leaked letters from Russell Moore near the end of his term alleged internal resistance from SBC leaders. Greear himself has acknowledged the denomination needed to go further. He also faced questions from conservative SBC members for his views on racial diversity in leadership and his reluctance to align the denomination with any single political party.
What is J.D. Greear’s theology?
Greear is a Reformed Southern Baptist evangelical. His theology centers on the gospel as the permanent foundation of Christian life, a high view of Scripture, salvation assurance rooted in ongoing faith rather than a single prayer, complementarianism in church leadership, and a strong emphasis on global missions, including among Muslim-majority populations. He is a council member of The Gospel Coalition.
What is the Solid Rock Church connection to J.D. Greear?
There is no connection. J.D. Greear’s church is The Summit Church. “Solid Rock Church” is a name shared by many different, unrelated congregations in the United States. Any search linking the two is a case of keyword confusion, not an actual relationship.
What is J.D. Greear’s podcast?
J.D. Greear hosts the Ask the Pastor podcast, which features pastoral answers to theological, cultural, and practical questions. He also produces Summit Life, a daily 30-minute radio broadcast and weekly TV program. Both are available through J.D. Greear Ministries at jdgreear.com.
Did J.D. Greear attend Solid Rock Church?
No. J.D. Greear has no documented association with any church by that name. He grew up in Winston-Salem, began ministry at Open Door Baptist Church in Raleigh, and has been at The Summit Church since 2002.
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Influence and Legacy
J.D. Greear’s legacy is still being written, and he would probably say that’s the point. He has spent 20-plus years building a church whose defining feature is how many people it sends away.
The Summit has planted over 700 churches and sent more than 2,000 members into ministry. By that measure, Greear’s influence is multiplied across hundreds of communities he will never personally visit.
His SBC presidency was not without friction. But it moved the denomination toward conversations on racial diversity and abuse accountability that previous generations had avoided.
David Platt and others in the SBC’s younger, missions-focused generation have operated in the same space Greear helped open.
As a writer, his book Stop Asking Jesus into Your Heart addressed a real pastoral gap. Millions of Baptists had been taught to anchor their assurance to a childhood prayer, and Greear gave them a more robust, biblically grounded place to stand. That is not a small thing.
His role at Chick-fil-A, his media reach through Summit Life, and his ongoing writing mean he remains one of the most connected pastors in American evangelicalism, even outside his SBC presidential profile.
