Cliff Lyda has been pastor of Elmhurst Presbyterian Church since October of 2003. He and his wife, Martha Halsey-Lyda, moved to Elmhurst from Gainesville, Florida where he had been pastor of Highlands Presbyterian Church since 1988.

Cliff is a native of Jacksonville, Florida and a graduate of the University of Florida. He began his ministry as a Southern Baptist in 1974, working as a youth director in several churches in Florida and Texas. He graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master of Divinity degree in 1978.

After a brief career as a Southern Baptist pastor Cliff moved into the Presbyterian Church. His reasons were theological and political, which he happily discusses with anyone who asks. Before the Highlands church, he served as interim pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Live Oak, FL, and pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Palatka, FL. He has many wonderful friends in each of these places.

Cliff has a diversity of experience across thirty-two years of ministry. He has been a youth minister, a hospital and prison chaplain, a preacher, a writer, a conflict manager, a teacher, a counselor, a coach, a fund raiser, a church planter, a mentor to new ministers, a community organizer, and an advocate for the homeless. He has known great success and tragic failure, and can speak from personal experience about the power of God’s grace. This is his greatest qualification for ministry.

Cliff is a baby boomer, which means he stands between two distinct eras of ministry in the church. He was nurtured and trained in the traditional, institutional church of his parents, but he knows the postmodern church that is emerging with his children. One is passing away; the other has not been fully birthed. He sees himself as a bridge between the two, an untested and perhaps dangerous role. He wants to be part of the transition, loving what has been while embracing what is to come.

The move to suburban Chicago is a milestone in Cliff’s life. It was an almost complete break with life as he had known it. It is perhaps a small parable that a middle aged man, settled into a comfortable routine, should be called to a completely new context. Is God is calling the church into a similar kind of change?

Cliff is a huge sports fan. He has adopted the Chicago White Sox as his baseball team, putting him in some tension with the large number of Cub fans in Elmhurst now that the White Sox are world champions. He also enjoys the Bears and Bulls. He is an avid walker and a lover of jazz, blues, and some classical music.

Cliff believes that life beyond the age of fifty is an adventure. He has begun to study piano, and is learning to dance, both of which would have been considered impossible earlier in his life. He is also working toward fluency in Spanish. He has a long list of things yet to undertake. His attitude is that the best of life is yet to come.

Outside of EPC, Cliff is active in the work of the Presbytery of Chicago, serving on the Committee on Ministry. He is also president of the board of directors of Nueva Esperanza Urban Youth Mission, a ministry to Hispanic youth in Chicago. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Elmhurst, serving as an officer and director.

He and Martha married each other in later life and have a blended family of five sons. At home they are devoted to three Labrador retrievers. Martha is a diabetes nurse currently studying to become a nurse practitioner.
 

Cliff & Family