Obituary
Stephen Bruce Clark, of Chelsea, Michigan, born on June 1, 1940, died at the age of 83 on March 16, 2024. He was a pioneer and intellectual leader of the Charismatic renewal, a spiritual movement which has had a transformative impact on the Christian churches.
Steve was born in Queens, New York, the son of Louis Seidenstein and Estelle Edna Clark. He attended Bellerose Public School on Long Island and Peddie Boys School in Hightstown, New Jersey. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, Steve studied at the University of Freiburg in Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship. He then completed his Masters in philosophy at Notre Dame University.
Steve became convinced of the truth of Christianity while a student at Yale, where he was baptized a Catholic. Reading about Francis of Assisi led him to seek a life of simplicity, prayer, and service to others. That pursuit inspired him to give up his doctoral studies in philosophy, and to dedicate himself to Christ as a lay evangelist and community builder.
In 1967 he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, along with three friends who shared his evangelistic vision. They had been among the first Catholics that year to have a Pentecostal experience, and in Ann Arbor they formed the first Charismatic covenant community. The group was called “The Word of God,” and it soon included thousands of local Christians of various ages, states of life, cultural backgrounds, and churches. Steve was one of its primary leaders.
At the same time Steve gathered a group of young men who sought to share a celibate life of simplicity, prayer, and service. Together they formed a lay ecumenical brotherhood called The Servants of the Word with Steve as its first overall leader. They now have more than ten households in six countries.
In 1983 The Word of God and other related communities joined together to form an international community called The Sword of the Spirit, with Steve as its founding President. The Sword of the Spirit now consists of more than 95 communities around the world with over 12,500 adult members and 5,000 children.
Steve authored or compiled more than twenty books and several hundred articles. His writings have had a profound influence on the development of the Catholic Charismatic movement and its communities. But his greatest legacy consists of the lives of thousands of men and women whose love for God and God’s people took flight from Steve’s youthful decision to imitate Francis and follow Christ wherever he led.
Steve has no surviving members of his immediate family, but his loss is mourned by his brothers in the Servants of the Word and the members of the Sword of the Spirit.
Funeral Livestream
The funeral was held on Saturday, 23 March, at 11 am at Christ the King Church, 4000 Ave Maria Drive, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, followed by a luncheon at 12:30 pm. The service was livestreamed by Christ the King: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vsdVTuI8NWA
There was a visitation on Friday, 22 March, from 7:30-10pm at Christ the King Church, and also on Saturday from 10-11am, just before the funeral.
The Burial took place at the Brotherhood Center in Chelsea for brothers and invited guests.
Given Steve’s great commitment to the Lord’s work among young people, in lieu of flowers, we would ask you to consider making a donation to SOS youth and university work in your area in his name.
A Eulogy from Jean Barbara, President of the Sword of the Spirit
22 March 2024
In Memory of Steve Clark, a Mentor and a Brother
I was sitting in my daughter’s living room with three of my grandchildren aged 6, 9 and 11 when I started writing this eulogy. They asked me who it was about, and when I told them, they said they had never heard of Steve Clark. One day, if one or all of them end up joining the Sword of the Spirit as adult members, they will be told his story — the story of a man who was baptized as a Christian at university and who, a few years later, received a vision and a call from the Lord to build Christian charismatic covenant community and to establish a lay ecumenical brotherhood of celibate men. Today, there are thousands of charismatic communities and thousands of men and women around the world who would say that their personal and communal inspiration came from Steve.
His teachings, articles and books have become a reference to the charismatic world. One of them, a course he wrote more than 50 years ago under the title “The Life in the Spirit Seminars,” has been attended by more than a hundred fifty million Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants coming from almost every country of the world. In November of last year I was at a meeting in the Vatican where Pope Francis exhorted us to spread the Life in the Spirit Seminars to the whole church, not only within the charismatic movement. Steve’s book Man and Woman in Christ, written in 1980, was hailed by L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, as one of the most important books ever written on the topic. This is some of what my grandchildren and many others will hear or read about Steve.
Over the past few years, I have addressed a large number of community leaders in many countries in Africa and Europe — and also networks of communities. The leaders have consistently wanted to know how to build Christian community and to receive wisdom and teaching about forming their members and training their leaders. And it looks like this trend of interest is on the increase. What I have been able to share with them is the treasure trove of material Steve had developed for the Sword of the Spirit, the international community of communities that he founded. Many of these leaders have even adopted for their own communities Steve’s description of covenant community as “a community of disciples on mission.”
What my children have already heard from me (and hopefully my grandchildren soon will) is that Steve was a father and a brother to me. I have known him for 40 years, for 18 of which I served alongside him on the leadership council of the Sword of the Spirit. He mentored me, he had patience with me, he encouraged me, but above all he was a dear friend, always gentle, and with a twist of good American humor. I cherished the moments I spent with him and always looked forward to them. Once he surprised me when he spoke to me in my own language, Arabic, a language he learned for the sake of entertaining his many Lebanese friends — a language alongside the several he already spoke.
Over the years, a few men and women have had a great impact on my life. Steve is certainly at top of that list. With the little time I have left, I will continue to spread his legacy worldwide to the glory of God and to the good of all those called to be in lay covenant communities, in celibate brotherhoods, and in the charismatic movement at large.
In the past number of years, Steve lived in a care home, most of the time sitting in his room. I visited him there and have also talked to him there through the internet, and I often wondered whether the life of such a travelled man for the sake of the Gospel was now idle. Until I came across this story and commentary by Bishop Kallistos Ware in his book, The Orthodox Way, and I quote: “One of the best known of the Desert Fathers of fourth-century Egypt, St. Serapion the Sindonite, travelled once on pilgrimage to Rome. Here he was told of a celebrated recluse, a woman who lived always in one small room, never going out. Skeptical about her way of life — for he was himself a great wanderer — Serapion called on her and asked: ‘Why are you sitting here?’ To this she replied: ‘I am not sitting, I am on a journey.’
“I am not sitting, I am on a journey,” continues Bishop Kalilistos. “Every Christian may apply these words to himself or herself. To be a Christian is to be a traveler. Our situation, say the Greek Fathers, is like that of the Israelite people in the desert of Sinai: we live in tents, not houses, for spiritually we are always on the move. We are on a journey through the inward space of the heart, a journey not measured by the hours of our watch or the days of the calendar, for it is a journey out of time into eternity.”
I hope to see you soon, Steve, my brother and my mentor!
Jean Barbara,
President, The Sword of the Spirit
Festschrift — Essays in Honor of Stephen B. Clark
Click below to view and download the Festschrift with the title “Our Hope of Sharing the Glory of God”.
Photo Slideshow of Steve Clark
Click below to download the photo slideshow in PPTX format.