THE SOCIETY OF ST. COLUMBA

"All of life proceeds from God, all of life participates in God and all of life returns to God" 

John Scottus Eriugena

Our Beginnings.

The Origins of The Society of St Columba (St Columba's) rest in the call to live a life of prayer. In an old Anglo-Saxon Chapel in the South Downs of England, a small group of people gathered to pray and listen. It was in these still nights, that God spoke  'start again'.

The heart beat of St Columba's became encountering Christ in community and creation.

St Columba's Community Farm.

St Columba's is a Christian new monastic ecumenical community located at Chanctonbury in West Sussex. 

We have a 23-acre community farm in Chanctonbury West Sussex, where we seek to outwork our faith and values in looking after the land, restoring our heritage buildings and welcoming people to take part and benefit from the life we have here.

St Columba is dedicated to demonstrating that following Jesus makes good common sense for building and strengthening community, protecting our planet and demonstrating sustainable local economic practice. Our is a wholistic vision

As a new monastic community, we welcome all of creation, without prejudice, to encounter The Divine in community and creation.

Our Community Practices & Spiritual Rhythm.

As a community St Columba's is focused around 7 spiritual principles and we draw inspiration from St Columba of Iona and his instruction 'Let your daily labours be three; prayer, work and reading'.

Prayer is the foundation of our spiritual life in Christ. We meet for contemplative prayer and seek a daily rhythm of prayer in our lives. There are prayer times on the farm once a week to which all are invited. 

Work is an important part of our humanity, whether we work for a living or serve the wider community, giving ourselves to working for the common good is an act of worship. We are committed to serving the community local and wider/extra local with all the variety of gifts and service that we can bring. 

Reading of scripture is central to the life Christian community, enabling us all to grow in wisdom and understanding. Theological reflection and a scripturally formed imagination facilitate the community to discover who God is, who God calls us to be and who we are called to serve in the wider world. 

Sabbath is our commitment to creating a place and space in our lives for rest and relaxation with time to replenish our lives and spirits through beauty and creativity. 

Silence, alongside prayer we want to commit ourselves to one hour of silence a month in order to place ourselves under the wisdom and shelter of God’s love. Prayer times will be contemplative with silent reflection. Building this silence into the rhythm of our lives helps us grow and listen to the voice of The Holy Spirit.

Pilgrimage is a clear distinctive to the ethos and pattern of the spiritual life. We want to explore ‘a pilgrimage’ on an annual basis. We encourage members to explore their own pilgrimages. We also want to build a community on pilgrimage so we walk together, learning to follow in the footsteps of a Christ like way of life and follow the Holy Spirit in all we do. 

Place. As human beings we all inhabit a place, a physical geographical location. St Columba’s Community Farm is located in the historic and iconic location of Chanctonbury. This place allows us to gather as a community and create a way of life that is sustainable and life giving. It enables a diverse community to integrate flexibly but with enough structure and stability to allow for growth, depth and spiritual nourishment. We encourage members, wherever they are located, to participate in community life as much as possible within the demands of their own lives and commitments. 

Our Community Activities and Impact

We go slow, tread lightly on the land, care for the soil, local economy, ecological approach, invest & enrich biodiversity, welcome and foster community engagement and give away what we have learned. 

• Conservation & habitat restoration on the farm - We invest into creating a broad and diverse landscape, aimed at encouraging the proliferation of bird & insect life
• Community Education through the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, enabling marginalised individuals and community groups to theraputically benefit from life on the farm
• Community market garden, mixed fruit & woodland garden, water management and storage.
• We have a mixed flock of native rare breed Shetland and Manx Loaghtan Sheep. The flock is called The Wild Ones.
• We have a small apiary of bees.
• Volunteer days – where members of the public can get their hands dirty with us and learn about looking after land, growing, livestock keeping
• Heritage Building restoration - allowing us to offer some skills development opportunities to those who work with their hands.

Groups we directly work with.

During the past 12 months of 2024 these are some of the individuals and groups who have been a part of the community life. It is a privilege to work alongside them and our desire as St Columba to be able to grow and deepen these opportunities with some of the more vulnerable members of our society.

• Long term unemployed and homeless
• People who are refugees or seeking asylum
• People struggling with addiction
• Home school families - helping the next generation to love the land and learn how to care for and steward it well
• Reaching those who are still exploring spirituality

Plans for 2025.

The purpose of our fundraiser is so that we can build upon the excellent work developed over the last few years and expand and grow our impact. During the next 12 months we will also delivering the following activities

Teaching days - St Columba has seen a number of important ecclesial and ethical distinctives emerge since its founding e.g. new monastic practice, inclusive community, a Celtic Christian focus around the natural world and how we as humans live as a part of creation. Our teaching days will focus on these themes and more.

Heritage Buildings Restoration. Our farmstead is an amazing place, a walk through history, antiquity and a symbol of our enduring link to those who have gone before us. If your passion is restoration, we can keep you busy with tackling our education centre - the building that will be our focus for 2025. 

Making new barn doors for the Great Barn

Moving forward, the task of community building, being protectors of the land and promoting the positive and life transforming contribution that following Christ can be, continues to inspire and motivate us to be become better version of ourselves.

We understand that we proceed, slowly, prayerfully and graciously, recognising that we have a responsibility before God to enfranchise and raise up the poor and the marginalised, curate the flourishing of nature in all its myriad of diversity and colour and see our community grow in a holistic way.

We invite Christians from across the Church family to support us as we grow in our practice. As an ecumenical community we are here for everyone and everyone is welcome. Whether you're looking to learn about community, or need space to relax and find peace in the restless world, you are always welcome.

The exciting activities and the social and ecological impact we are having requires a level of core funding to facilitate the existing work and to grow and expand our impact for the benefit of those who come to the community. 

We are therefore seeking core funding of £10,000. This amount will go directly into the community team that enables the diversity of the activities across St Columba.

Please do consider a one off donation, or a monthly Standing Order. We are also registered with HMRC for GIFT Aid, so please tick the box that gives your permission for us to collect Gift Aid from your contribution. You must be a UK tax payer to qualify for a Gift Aid contribution.

Thank you from the St Columba Team