Clem has worked as an advertising copywriter, healthcare PR person, and an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. In 1992 he faced a dilemma – continue to pursue a career in newspaper journalism or change courses and take classes toward a master’s degree in biblical studies. He chose the latter, but walking through that process and facing other important decisions since has caused him to reflect on the subject of career and how it fits in with following God.
Clem is a pastor and elder for his church, Xenos Christian Fellowship of Dayton, a ministry of home groups replicating home groups via discipleship and lay leadership. He has also been writing in the Christian magazine market for the last nine years and been published in the top Christian magazines in the country, with combined total circulation of over 2 million. His stories have appeared in Focus on the Family magazine and a number of its sister publications; Christianity Today, Christian Parenting Today, Plain Truth, Sports Spectrum and others. Many are archived on the Internet and can be found on the Article Links page.
Clem is also an author. His book, What Does God Want Me to Do? (Tate Publishing, 2008) tells his story and the story of many others who’ve wrestled with this question and decided to make major life changes in response. What Does God Want Me to Do? is a Focus on the Family Recommended Book.
Among those featured in the book is Jeff Gordon, an internal medicine doctor in Columbus, OH and church leader who is the author of A Death Prolonged, a novel that deals with the costs, emotional and financial, of the current approach to end-of-life care in U.S. medicine. Also featured is Phil Wong, a bio-medical engineer and the author of The Little Girl, the moving children’s story of a Chinese bachelor who adopts a little girl left to die by exposure. Fenlin Lee created the beautiful watercolor illustrations in The Little Girl.
Clem and his wife Julia have three children, David, Bethany and Mark. Clem co-leads a junior high ministry and his wife is a Girl Scout leader. Together they host an adult home Bible study at their house. Clem graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University in 1984 and a master’s degree in biblical studies from Cincinnati Bible Seminary in 1995. Clem’s mom, Jean, lives with the family in her own apartment. The Boyds also have a dog Chinook, two cats, Adda and Odie, and a bird, Sparky.
Family life