By Andy Pettman.
Steve Clark was born in New York in 1940 and began studies at Yale in 1958. It was at Yale that he came to a personal faith, particularly through the influence of writings on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi. He was baptised through the Yale Catholic chaplaincy, but gradually came to a conviction that Sunday church attendance alone, was not enough to sustain strong faith in the modern world, and the need for what was called Christian community.
Graduating from Yale in 1962, Steve spent a year on a Fulbright scholarship studying philosophy at the University of Freiburg, and then began a doctorate at the University of Notre Dame in 1963. It was here that he met the Cursillo renewal movement, and started leading part of their work. This eventually led to him taking the radical step of leaving his doctoral programme, and giving himself fully to the charismatic and community renewal that was beginning at that time. This led to the foundation of the Word of God community in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1970, and eventually to a network of about 80 communities worldwide called the “Sword of the Spirit”.
Steve’s early experience in the renewal, convinced him of its wholly ecumenical nature, and meant that from the beginning communities that started up were at a minimum ecumenically open, and wherever possible, very diverse in church membership, living out to the full what Pope John Paul II said in “Ut Unum Sint” (1995) “Relations between Christians are not aimed merely at mutual knowledge, common prayer and dialogue. They presuppose and from now on call for every possible form of practical cooperation at all levels: pastoral, cultural and social, as well as that of witnessing to the Gospel message.”
How Christians from different denominations can live and serve together day to day is underpinned by his writings, some published, some not. Of his published works “Redeemer” (published in 1992) – a fully ecumenical understanding of the work of Christ – has probably had the most impact on my thinking. However his greatest impact for the ecumenical cause has come through his personal work with the leaders of many renewal communities worldwide, through his speaking and teaching programmes, and through his founding of the Servants of the Word, an ecumenical brotherhood of men, of which I am a member. The Servants of the Word make the traditional lifelong commitments to Obedience, Celibacy and Poverty (we call this Simplicity), living together in households of typically 5-12 men, and coming from different traditions wherever possible. As an example, based in London we currently have 11 men: 5 Roman Catholics, 3 Maronites, 2 Anglicans and 1 Methodist. Steve’s thinking and practical wisdom have shaped our ecumenical life and made it possible.