More than two years after a group of Salt-Lake-area Lutherans set out to create a new church on the valley's southwest side, Light of the Valley Lutheran Church has opened its Riverton doors. Its first worship service Dec. 14 drew a capacity crowd in the still-being-renovated, and soon-to-be-expanded, space.

Spiritually leading the new congregation is the Rev. Alan "Al" Borcher, who accepted a call from the Rocky Mountain District of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to plant this church, which is housed in a former boat-manufacturing facility-turned-tool supply building. The church venue's history matches the unlikely path taken by Borcher, who entered seminary at age 48 after a 30-year career in utilities, first natural gas and later electric.

"I didn't ever consider myself an evangelist," the 56-year-old pastor said in a phone interview. "I didn't consider myself being in this role. But God had different plans."

To be fair, even as a young boy growing up in the panhandle of Nebraska, Borcher admitted he had felt a call to spiritual service. He said he was drawn to a hymn inspired by Isaiah 6:8, "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me." But "I knew, or thought I knew, I couldn't preach."

Instead, he figured he'd become a teacher at a Lutheran school. But life had a funny way of working.

He left a teaching program early to marry his wife, Gayle, a labor and delivery nurse now at Jordan Valley Hospital, and fell into a career path that simply took over -- between a large mortgage, a growing family and multiple car payments.

Decades later, when he was temporarily between jobs, Gayle pushed him with this question, he remembered: "If you could do anything, what would it be?" The answer he came to after a few days of pondering and praying was that he'd want to be a pastor. But he just didn't see how he could make that happen, and then an electric company came knocking. When that job fell apart a couple of years later, Gayle turned to him and asked, "So, now are we going to seminary?" he said.

At first he figured he was "too old," but likening his position to an animal in a meat slaughterhouse, walking through opening and closing gates, he said, "I felt like I was in those chutes. … Every gate directed me to the seminary."

The journey was roundabout, to be sure, but given his experiences he feels better equipped to do what he's been called to do. Before landing in Utah over the summer, Borcher served for four years as a pastor in what he called a "dual parish," serving two churches -- one in northeast Colorado; the other in western Nebraska. And now, as a church planter in Riverton, he said he feels his former skills -- he once worked in mergers and acquisitions for the utility companies -- will serve him well.

He wants to reach those who up until now had to travel across the valley for an LCMS church. Even more so, he hopes to reach those who've never found a spiritual home. Pointing to Grace Lutheran Church in Sandy, which he called Light of the Valley's "mother church," he said his west-side congregation wants to build the same kind of enthusiasm and family-oriented worship enjoyed and already established on the east side.

And while he goes about this business, he said he'll continue to take in Utah's "spectacular" beauty and enjoy the warmth of the people. "I'm looking forward to being here a long time proclaiming God's word."