Elders

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  • Jeremy Brown, Chair - Class of 2027

    I was born in Odessa, TX and consider Abilene, TX “home” having spent my formative years there. I can to Lubbock in 1995 to start my freshman year at Texas Tech University. Having grown up in the Independent Christian Church, I visited Raintree one Sunday. Roberta Carmen, wife of the Senior Minister at that time, found out I was a music major. She pointed up to where the choir sat (in the “old” building before the new gym and auditorium were built), and said, “Your seat is right up there.” And that was that. Anyone who knew Roberta knows you didn’t argue with her. 


    It is because of Raintree that I met my wife, Beth. It was Summer 1999 and I had just graduated from Tech. The church was going through some staffing changes and really didn’t have anyone to take the 4 high schooler to camp. Ron Betenbough, whom I was work for that summer, offered me my week’s salary if I would drive the kids to camp. Beth was attending Dallas Christian College and was a member of their camp team that summer. She spent roughly 10 weeks that summer going from church camp to church camp being a camp counselor. We were married 19 months to the day after we met! 


    About 5 months after we married, we moved from Lubbock to Houston so I could attend medical school. After 8 years in Houston, we returned to Lubbock. After visiting several other churches, we both agreed that Raintree felt like home and we have been members ever since. As of May 2023, I have been a member of Raintree for 20 years. Beth and I have welcomed 2 children into our home in the past 14 years, Eleanor in 2010, and Josiah in 2012. We are honored to accept this call to serve and give back to a church and congregation who have given so much to us!

  • Don Lytton - Class of 2028

    I grew up on a small farm in Las Cruces, New Mexico. During my freshman year at New Mexico State University, I was introduced to the concept of knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way and became very involved in a campus ministry until I joined an independent Bible church my senior year. It was there I met and married my wife, Kim. It was a match made in heaven, as no one could imagine a dramatic violinist and a quiet agronomist finding true love.


    In 1984 we and our three-year-old daughter moved to Mississippi where we promptly had our second daughter and I began working in agricultural research at Mississippi State University, taking classes on the side. We became crazily involved in what became an elder-led Baptist church where I eventually joined the elder team. After six years I graduated with a PhD in Agriculture, and we responded to God’s very clear call to go to minister to people in China in whatever way we could under very challenging conditions. We joined with a family we had known in Mississippi, but after less than a year they were forced to go home, leaving us alone to figure out our next step.


    In the end, we spent 20-plus years in China where we helped to start an international school. I was also involved in business, where we strove to model honest, Christian business practices, and in rural development, seeking to stabilize communities of struggling Christians in very remote mountain villages. Kim eventually developed an outreach to people involved in the entertainment and movie industry as she appeared in many stage shows and movies.


    We moved back to America in 2012 to minister to aging parents, and upon their passing, we moved to Lubbock to be near our grandchildren in Portales, New Mexico. We became involved with Raintree in 2019 and actively joined in the community life among church members. We believe it is by interacting with the members of a church community we all can know Jesus better and follow Him more closely.

  • Robert Barritt - Class of 2029

    I was born in Houston and raised in the northwest suburbs there. My parents faithfully took my sister and me to church, and my mother served for many years as a volunteer in the church library. Based in large part to that foundation, when I was 18 I gave my life to Christ. I went to school at Texas A&M and found a great church under whose guidance and teaching I was able to grow quickly.

     

    My wife Christina and I met at A&M. She was born in Germany and was raised in Lubbock, Fort Knox, KY, and Canadian, TX, her parents’ hometown. She gave her life to Christ when she was a freshman at A&M. We married a year later. I am a meteorologist with the National Weather Service while Christina is a history teacher at Kingdom Preparatory Academy. Our children are Samuel (21) and Abigail (20).

     

    We have lived through good times and bad, joys and struggles, but always desiring to praise God and live for him. We have served him in Sunday School classes at previous churches and as small group leaders here at Raintree. Currently I am serving my fourth stint as an elder while Christina has been a long-time servant in our children’s ministry.