Introduction

Biography

Lance was the son of Ab­ra­ham Lance La­them and El­iz­abeth Mc­Keag, and hus­band of Vir­gin­ia Teach. At some point, Lance ap­par­ent­ly be­gan spelling his sur­name as La­tham ra­ther than La­them. His tomb­stone spells it as La­tham.

He is best known as the co-found­er of Awa­na^® Clubs In­ter­na­tion­al. But in Chris­tian mu­sic circ­les, Doc was re­nowned for his mu­sic min­is­try. He was af­fec­tion­ate­ly dubbed with the nick­name Doc for an out­fit he once wore to a youth club mas­quer­ade par­ty.

He dis­played a pro­pen­si­ty for mu­sic at an ear­ly age, start­ing les­sons at age three. He was soon play­ing songs by heart, as his mo­ther called out page num­bers from a hymn book.

After he gra­du­at­ed from col­lege at age 17, mu­sic took cen­ter stage in his life. He re­ceived pi­ano train­ing from Maur­itz Leef­son, di­rect­or of the Phi­la­del­phia Con­ser­va­to­ry of Mu­sic, and earned cri­ti­cal and po­pu­lar praise per­form­ing through­out the Phi­la­del­phia area.

His ris­ing mu­sic­al ca­reer played a part in his sal­va­tion de­ci­sion. At age 21, he was in­vite­d to play for Will­iam Ni­chol­son’s ev­an­gel­is­tic cru­sade in Ches­ter, Penn­syl­van­ia. On Sep­tem­ber 18, 1915, af­ter hear­ing one of Ni­chol­son’s Gos­pel pre­sen­ta­tions, the young pro­di­gy re­ceived Christ as his Sav­ior.

Following con­ver­sion, La­tham be­gan put­ting his mu­sic­al gifts to use com­pos­ing hymns. He was soon dis­co­vered by Paul Ra­der, Am­er­ica’s first na­tion­wide ra­dio preach­er. Ra­der hired La­tham to join the mu­sic­al staff at Moo­dy Ta­ber­na­cle and to tra­vel with him on ev­an­gel­is­tic cru­sades.

When Ra­der be­came pas­tor at the Chi­ca­go Gos­pel Ta­ber­na­cle in 1922, he in­vit­ed La­tham to serve as an as­so­ci­ate. La­tham lat­er or­gan­ized a mu­sic­al group called the White Shirt Bri­gade. This all boy choir per­formed and taught at church­es throug­hout the Am­er­ican Mid­west and South. One mem­ber of the Bri­gade was Art Ror­heim, who lat­er be­came Awa­na^® co-foun­der with La­tham.

In 1934, La­tham be­came pas­tor of a new church, the North Side Gos­pel Cen­ter in Chi­ca­go, Il­li­nois. He served there for 40 years. Dur­ing his days as pas­tor, La­tham drew huge crowds to his du­el­ing pi­anos con­certs at the Gos­pel Cen­ter.