As of Oct. 1, the Rev. Paul Lance has traded his traditional pastoral garb for casual clothing, as he is heading out to the hometown of his wife, Patty, in Long Beach, California, to care for her aging mother and to enjoy their retirement years in a warmer climate.

Lance spent the last seven years as pastor at First Congregational in Alpena, where he established many programs and nurtured friendships with church members and throughout the community. He is known for community activism and fostering racial equality programs and classes, as well as ecumenical outreach programs promoting unity across denominations and religions.

“The slogan of our church is, ‘Whoever you are, and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here,'” Lance said. “We’re open, positive, friendly. The people that have joined up with us over the last seven years that I’ve been here have said, ‘You always make us feel so welcome.’ So that’s really what we try to have happen.”

He said he will miss the people of Alpena, both from his congregation and throughout the community.

Courtesy Photo The Rev. Jack Fitzgerald, on left, was the minister at the time Paul Lance, right, was ordained 37 years ago at First Congregational Church in Alpena.

“Because ministry is so people-oriented, you really get involved in the intimacies of their lives,” Lance said. “When people pass away, when they’re having a new baby and they want to do a baptism, or when they’re going through counseling situations, you really get the inside of people’s lives. And that really becomes part of who I am, because I look at them not as just case studies, like you would out of a textbook, but these are people that you know … you’re just in their lives in all kinds of ways.”

He said being a pastor means being a skilled leader of both children and adults.

“So the parents look to the minister as somebody who’s a trained adult — I have a doctorate in ministry, and my master’s degree before I could become ordained — so, they see a trained person who’s got skills that an adult can appreciate,” Lance explained. “But the kids see somebody who will also sit on the floor with them and teach them some silly gestures to go with a song.”

He loves every aspect of getting to know people, young and old alike.

“And then the parents see the reverend doctor is sitting on the floor, talking to their 13-year-old, like, person-to-person, and they don’t even do that, anymore,” Lance said. “So, it’s a really interesting place to be. There’s no other call I could have had in my life. I just know. I knew it from the time I was in junior high school. This is the one role where you can be almost anything.”

For example, he wrote a musical about the Book of Jonah and they performed it at the church.

“I love to sing, so I’ve been in every choir,” he said of each church he has led.

In addition, he leads songs for kids during the church’s children’s programs.

“In what other job can you sing three or four times a week?” he asked. “My love of music is part of the whole joy of ministry.”

He also enjoyed visiting people in their homes and hosting Eating Outings, in which he would pick up teenagers and take them out to eat at the restaurant of their choosing so he could get to know them and provide mentorship and guidance.

“I wanted to get a sense of who they are, outside of just when they come to church,” said Lance, who served more than five years as a youth pastor prior to coming back to Alpena.

Lance graduated from Alpena High School in 1971, where he was the valedictorian of his class. He was also on the debate team and in drama club.

“One of the memories a lot of people have of me in high school is when I was a sophomore they cast me as Professor Harold Hill in ‘The Music Man,'” he reminisced. “So I was known, right off, in the community as, ‘Here’s this young guy, a song and dance man.’ But my mother, Doris, ‘Dodi’ Lance, was a music instructor and an artist … and so, as a kid, I learned how to dance.”

His family moved to Alpena when he was in junior high, when his father, Les Lance, was called to Alpena to be the executive vice president of First Federal Savings and Loan.

While in high school, he founded the Alpena Teens for Progress. He was also a member of a citizen’s advisory council and played trombone in the city band. After graduating from AHS in 1971, he spent 14 months as an exchange student, living with a family in Lauenberg, Germany, and traveling throughout Europe.

Lance graduated summa cum laude from Alpena Community College in 1974, earning an associate’s degree in humanities.

In 1975, he enlisted in the U.S. Army as a chapel activity specialist. He earned an army commendation medal for his work in Fort McPherson, Georgia.

The commendation noted Lance’s “meticulous attention to detail and an innovative approach” in his duties, and cited that “he gave unselfishly of his time and talents to a variety of off-duty activities, which enhanced the chapel program.”

Lance met and married Patty Holland in 1978. They’ve now been married 42 years.

“She was the Catholic chaplain’s assistant assigned for McPherson, Georgia, and I was the Protestant chaplain’s assistant, so we met, had a lot of programs we did together, fell in love, and got married,” he said with a smile. “So we had an ecumenical marriage from the get-go.”

They worked as chaplain’s assistants, operating a coffeehouse ministry and working together on religious plays, among many other innovative projects that went above and beyond their normal duties.They worked together at Fort Gillem in Forest Park, Georgia, as well. Patty also earned an Army Commendation Medal for her work at Fort Gillem.

Since they met in the Army, the couple jokes that they each received their “government-issued spouse.”

“She says I’m the best thing she got out of the Army,” Lance said. “And so do I.”

Lance received another Army Commendation Medal while in Ludwigsburg, Germany from 1978 to 1979. Then, in 1980, he earned an associate’s degree in business management at the European division of the University of Maryland, where he also earned a bachelor’s degree in 1981 in German language and culture. He earned his master’s degree in divinity from the San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1983.

He was ordained Sept. 25, 1983 at the First Congregational Church in Alpena, by the Rev. Jack Fitzgerald.

“The Congregational tradition is what I grew up in,” Lance said, adding that he enjoys the freedom of writing his own sermons, calls to worship, and pastoral prayers. “So that creative writing, that’s another thing I thought I might be, is a creative writer … so this is my creative outlet.”

He explained that the Congregational church is more passive and peace-centered, with an emphasis on grace, not guilt.

Lance said some of the other denominations’ preaching is “apocalyptic. It is not welcoming. It is not affirming. It is not open. It wants people to feel guilty. And, where we spend our time is trying to say, ‘Don’t feel guilty. Stop with that. Don’t be so ashamed. Don’t be that way.’ … But I love the corner that I’m in, because, within my tradition, I can be open and affirming and embracing and progressive, and all the things that we are and always have been.”

He first served a year as interim pastor of the International Protestant Church of Zurich, Switzerland, where he led English-speaking worship services for a diverse group of international people.

Then he and his wife headed to the Federated Church, United Church of Christ, in Dowagiac, Michigan, where they spent three years.

There, “because we weren’t kinfolk to anybody, and because we hadn’t gone to school there, we weren’t classmates of anybody,” they began to feel like they should move back out to California, where Patty is from.

They spent 25 years in Long Beach, California, prior to returning to Alpena.

“The first church I served there, for five-and-a-half years, I was the youth minister, Sunday school coordinator, vacation Bible school coordinator, mission trips, retreats — I was the associate minister,” he noted. “And that was wonderful, because my skills as a young person — I was right in there and I loved doing it — I became a trainer of trainers of youth workers back in the 80s during that time.”

Then, in 1993, he left to become the campus minister at California State University Long Beach.

“I was there only for one year before I went into the parish work again,” Lance said.

Then he went on to lead a church in Torrance, California, for 17 years.

Lance was named 2005 Clergyman of the Year while pastoring Seaside Community Church in Torrance, California, when he was 51. The South Coast Interfaith Council selected Lance for the award based on his many contributions to the community, including active participation in outreach programs and mission work.

When Lance returned to Alpena in 2013, he started some new programs at the church.

“When I first got here, I started … a 5 o’ clock Sunday afternoon Underground Church,” Lance said. “And that became really a hit, with about 20 people in town. But it never grew beyond that.”

He said they stopped doing it after about four years, but it was on the right track.

“Underground Church was a new initiative to reach out into the community, kind of being more spiritual, less religious,” he said. “No sermon, easy-going, seated in chairs with a big-screen TV, singing along with John Denver or something like that.”

He noted the church’s involvement in Community Lenten Services over the years, as well as the Ecumenical Good Friday Service. They have also had free movie nights, a Living Gift Market Petting Zoo, Salt and Light Singers in the summer, the annual Prayer for Christian Unity, Peace Pole Pilgrimage, SERRV Bazaar, as well as Wacky Wednesday Fun Club for kids.

“We’re trying to do things to attract people who are not church-going,” he explained. “There are always Bible studies, things like that, but a Wacky Wednesday Fun Club after school — you learn values, singing and dancing, storytelling, snacks, crafts — but it’s always just for fun. We get human values in there without it necessarily being kind of preachy.”

He said that, for a while after Underground Church, they did something called Infinity Church.

“It was an effort to lift up all those other alternative” forms of spirituality, he explained. They would do yoga and meditate and have Bahai prayer and drumming, alternating the types of activities from session to session, which occurred several times per month.

On a weekly basis, in place of Underground Church, they started Thank God It’s Sunday, which was an informal, interactive worship service with hors d’oeuvres at the same 5 p.m. time.

“We started that one with 20 people,” he said. “If you feed them, they will come.”

He said it was an informal way for the people in the community to get to know each other.

“It was like a happy hour,” he added.

Lance also headed up weekly Bible studies, as well as book discussions, classes, and special events. Those will be on hiatus in his absence.

In the interim, the Rev. Bob Case has taken over as transitional minister of First Congregational UCC. Case was the former longtime minister of the church, prior to Lance’s arrival. Case will serve until the search for a new minister has been completed.

Lance noted that he is proud of his congregation for being so active and generous in the Alpena community.

“Our church, the first thing I would say about it is we are a generous church,” he said. “A very generous church … Every year, through our Comstock fund, we give away $50,000 in grants to local helping agencies in town. Every year. They have since Andrew Comstock gave the funds in 1980.”

He said he loves that the church does that, “because we see ourselves connected to all the parts of the community.”

In addition to the generosity, he said church members serve on many boards and organizations that help those in need.

“One of our board members is the chair of Habitat for Humanity, which we helped start,” Lance said. “Some of our people are on the Hospice of Michigan (board), which we helped start. People have always been very active in this church. They’re on the Chamber of Commerce, they’re on the United Way. And that’s who we are, and always have been. We are the oldest church in this town. We are the oldest church north of Bay City, I think — 1862 is when we were founded.”

He explained what it says on the historical marker in front of the church.

“The reason that they chose, for the first church in Alpena, would be Congregational is because they are open to people of all faiths,” Lance said. “We’re not an exclusive — we are an inclusive group. So, that, more than love and peace — we are welcoming, inclusive, generous, and progressive.”

Even though he won’t be at the pulpit, he welcomes everyone to join the church he has called home for seven of his 37 years as a minister.

“Love your neighbor like you love yourself,” he added. “Our Christianity is very simple. It would lead to more peace if people did it. It would lead to more love if people would do it.”

Once they sell their house and move to California, Lance isn’t planning anything. He just knows what he likes to do, and he’ll do it.

“I still love to write music and sing music and perform, so I’ll probably find a group that I can perform with,” he said. “I certainly will be active in the church. My guess is we’ll join the First Congregational Church of Long Beach.”

He may even write a book called, “I say ‘JESUS!’ You say ‘CHRIST!'”

At any rate, he will continue to follow Jesus’ example and teach others the love of God through word and action, focusing on grace.

“We do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “Period.”

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