Steve Clifford’s life took an unexpected turn three decades ago, leading him from a high school classroom to the pulpit of a Bay Area church. Alongside his wife Dana, Steve has spent the past thirty years ministering in the Bay Area, with the last twenty-five years at Westgate Church in San Jose. However, this path was far from what he initially envisioned.
As a former high school teacher and football coach, Steve had planned to spend his career in education. But at the age of thirty, he and Dana felt a divine call to something different. “The last thing Dana and I thought was that we’d be working at a church,” Steve recalls. “I had a Master’s in education and thought I’d work in schools for the rest of my life.”
An Unconventional Start
Steve’s journey into ministry began when a friend asked him to help with a church in their native Texas. “I didn’t go to church until I was 23,” says Steve. “I’m not really a typical church person, but I told my buddy we’d help him for a couple of years and that was 34 years ago.”
When the Cliffords moved to San Jose in 2001, the city was on the cusp of becoming the technology hub it is today. “I love doing ministry here,” Steve says. “With the diversity and the challenge of the cultural mindset, it’s a really fun place to be.”
Building Relationships in Silicon Valley
San Jose, the 10th largest city in the U.S. with a population of just over one million people, is a transient place. “People come in, work hard, accomplish something, make money, and then leave,” Steve observes. “That means we work hard to build relationships quickly. The on-ramp for people to get to know us is pretty short.”
Steve quickly realized that one church could not make a major impact alone. “No one church is really going to change the city. There are too many issues, too many people to reach, and too much to do.” This realization led him to start building a network of pastors. “Very early on I started taking a lunch hour a week to meet with the pastors of other churches. After you do that for a while you find that there’s a network.”
Over the years, Steve has expanded this network, joining with other local churches on initiatives like Beautiful Day, an annual service project to Santa Clara County. “The church in Silicon Valley is never going to conform to where we look alike; nor should we. But there can be amazing unity around the Good News about Jesus.”
The South Bay Network
Approximately sixty pastors are now members of the South Bay Network. After fourteen months of weekly Zoom calls, the group is starting to meet in person monthly once again. “We use a simple outline every time we gather and answer the questions: what are we learning? Where are we struggling? How can we pray?”
Scaling Up Through TBC
In addition to leading the South Bay Pastors Network, Steve is a founding Board member of The Bay Church (TBC). “I could barely get my hands around Santa Clara County, but TBC wanted to bring the churches together on a Bay Area scale. That’s a beautiful thing I’d been invited to be part of.”
As one of the two pastors on the Board, Steve serves as a liaison to represent the thoughts and concerns of the local church. “I’ve endured 20 years in the Bay area,” Steve says. “Maybe some of the things I’ve learned along the way I can share with other folks here.”
Passing on Lessons Learned
Steve’s deep conviction and belief in God’s love for every person in the Bay Area drives his ministry. “If there’s a willingness to share the burden with people of like mind and common heart, we could shock the Bay Area out of complacency,” he says. “The deep conviction that inspires me and fills me with the courage and motivation to keep moving is my deep belief that God is crazy in love with every single person in the Bay Area.”
