Alan Raughton received the Tim Holcomb Legacy Award at the annual meeting of the Disciple Leaders Network in March at Northside Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Raughton was recognized as a lifelong Christian educator with a distinguished career.
Raughton has spent 45 years as a disciple-making Christian educator. He retired last year from First Baptist Church Nashville, and prior to that he served in management and training roles at Lifeway Christian Resources. He also served churches as a minister of education in Mississippi, Virginia and Florida.
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Raughton said he was “surprised, humbled and honored” to receive the award, which was chosen by his peers. The award is named after Tim Holcomb of Franklin, Tennessee, who served as a minister of education, a manager at the Baptist Sunday School Board (now Lifeway Christian Resources) and as a staff member with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. He passed away in 2016.
The Disciple Leaders Network is based in Murfreesboro and is a professional development group for pastors, Christian educators and leaders of discipleship ministries in churches. It was formerly known as the Baptist Association of Christian Educators.
Raughton is a native of Albany, Georgia. He was raised in a Christian home, and members of his family were active members of Sherwood Baptist Church there, which is also the home church of the Kendrick brothers, makers of popular Christian films.
Ministry call
Raughton said he was saved at age 9 and was discipled well in church through Sunday School, church training, youth group and Royal Ambassadors. He felt the Lord calling him to ministry at age 16.
His pastor and the church staff took an eager interest in mentoring young Raughton.
“My pastor would call me up and say, ‘Alan, there is a dear saint about to pass on to heaven. Why don’t you come with me and observe as we minister together in her last hours on earth?’” Raughton said other staff members of the church would ask him to help them with projects and take him to meetings where he soaked up knowledge and experience at a young age.
He enrolled in Shorter College (now Shorter University) in Rome, Georgia. There he met Ruth, whom he would later marry when Raughton had moved on to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. When he first enrolled in Shorter College, he was studying music but later felt the Lord had gifted him more in educational ministries. He transferred to Mercer where he earned his bachelor’s degree. Ruth had become a public school teacher.
The young couple moved to New Orleans so that Raughton could attend New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned a master of religious education there while ministering at First Baptist Church Pearl River, Louisiana, as a youth and music pastor.
Later they would serve at Crossgates Baptist Church, Brandon, Mississippi, for 10 years. Then they moved up to London Bridge Baptist Church, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and later to Celebration Baptist Church, Tallahassee, Florida. Raughton said these were a mix of very old established churches and fairly new suburban churches with young families. London Bridge Baptist had been established in 1784.
Raughton volunteered in his associations and state conventions on training teams. Keith Kline, a manager at the Baptist Sunday School Board, took notice of him and asked him to come to Nashville to serve in the Bible teaching-reaching division of the Sunday School Board under Bill Taylor and Larry Ware. As he trained adult Bible study leaders across the U.S., he gained a lot of experience, eventually moving into management roles at Lifeway.
Raughton noted that his college and seminary training was valuable and taught him the academic portion of his profession, but the practical methods were still learned through relationships. He talked fondly of his church staff mentors in Georgia and the practical things he learned as he taught Sunday School leaders.
“I tried to always teach a class in a local church when I could because there I learned how the curriculum we produced at Lifeway really could be used best,” he said. He noted that he learned the value of making time available in the curriculum for people to talk and visit and pray before the lesson is taught.
After retiring from Lifeway, he spent a little over five years at FBC Nashville. Raughton said he dug into the history of the Sunday School ministry there and found the greatest years were when Sunday School classes used Arthur Flake’s Five-Step Formula for Sunday School Growth to expand the ministry. He said the pastor of the church in the 1920s enlisted Flake at the Sunday School Board to come three blocks over to the church and “prove your theory works and show the world it works.” So Flake consulted with the church.
‘Go after the people’
They looked out on the residential areas behind the church and actively canvassed them. Then they started new classes, set goals and followed the mandate to “go after the people.” And the church enjoyed many years of solid growth.
Raughton has a coffee cup in his collection that features Flake’s Five-Step Formula. He now enjoys sitting out on his back deck and drinking coffee and reflecting on the ministry God gave him and the heritage of those who went before him.
He said that relationships drove the ministry of Bible teaching that he trained so many in over the years. He said practical training shared by those in ministry is so important, and he encouraged others to get trained and “pour into your class” with the knowledge and skills gained.
Raughton now volunteers with the Nashville Baptist Association and the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and continues to encourage leaders to make disciples.
