From West Jackson to Sunnybrook Road
The congregation traces its origin to 1941, when nine women and three men, all communicants of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Jackson, made formal application to Bishop William Mercer Green to begin a mission in the growing neighborhoods of west Jackson. Within weeks the bishop had appointed a mission committee, and the thirty charter members began worshiping at 5 p.m. on Sundays inside Trinity Lutheran Church on the corner of Rose Street and Grand Avenue. Sunday school met in members' homes while the families waited for a building of their own.
With a world war on the horizon and financing uncertain, the founders chose a practical path: raise enough money to contract with a builder and borrow $4,200 from the American Church Building Fund to construct a parish hall that would double as a nave. In 1942 the "shingle church" on Claiborne Avenue was consecrated, with 100 communicants and 50 baptized members. Within seven years the mission had achieved full parish status. By 1960, the building the founders had hoped for in 1941 was finished. Members also hosted Heritage School from 1968 until 2006, the first accredited school in Mississippi for children with learning disabilities, which used the parish's classrooms at no charge.
St. Columb's stayed on Claiborne Avenue until 1994. By then the surrounding neighborhood had changed and membership had declined steeply. The congregation purchased nine acres in Ridgeland and, in the same can-do spirit, met in the cafeteria of St. Andrew's upper school while a new building was raised on Sunnybrook Road. The first Ridgeland building, finished in 1998, doubled as a parish hall and a nave. The permanent nave opened on the same campus in 2009.
"It's the People"
Visitors hear the same answer again and again when they ask why members keep coming to St. Columb's. The parish describes itself as an active, energetic community full of laughter, celebration and quiet reflection in equal measure. Families with young children, inquisitive teenagers, couples, singles and longtime friends share the pews. Newcomers sit alongside members who have spent their lives in the Episcopal Church. All are welcomed regardless of race, gender, age, sexual orientation or national origin.
The parish holds to the historic patterns of The Episcopal Church: belief in one God known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit; faith rooted in Holy Scripture and the historic Creeds; and a parish life shaped by the Book of Common Prayer and tested by reason. The rector has written about the Anglican inheritance of via media, the middle way - neither clinging to novelty nor to tradition for its own sake, but holding to what stands up to the Word of God and to sober reason. The parish strives to live out its Baptismal Covenant: to continue in the apostles' teaching, to resist evil, to proclaim the Good News by word and example, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
Saturday Evenings, Sunday Mornings
Three liturgies anchor the week. On Saturday at 5 p.m., a Holy Eucharist is celebrated in a relaxed setting. On Sunday the principal services of Holy Eucharist are held at 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Ushers hand each arriving guest a printed bulletin containing the full order of service, including the people's responses. The hymns are found in the blue Hymnal 1982 in the pew rack. Visitors are invited to stand when the priest invites the assembly to stand and to receive communion if they have been baptized in any Christian tradition.
The 10:30 a.m. service is the choir's home. The parish choir, joined by guest musicians, rehearses each Monday at 6 p.m. under Choir Director Chrissy Hrivnak and sings at the late Sunday Eucharist, with Patsy Simpson at the organ. During the 10:30 service children ages three through twelve may leave for Children's Chapel in the parish hall, where Director of Children's Education Amy Amundson and a team of teachers and assistants share a worship lesson. The liturgy is also livestreamed on the parish's YouTube channel for those who cannot be present.
Children, Youth, and the Adult Search
Sunday between the liturgies belongs to formation. Children's Sunday School begins at 9:30 a.m., with two classes split between lower and upper elementary. An Adult Sunday School class meets at 9:00 a.m. in the library of the parish hall, and its studies count toward Inquirer's credit for Confirmation. On Wednesday mornings the Rector's Lab Bible study takes up books of the Bible and excerpts from Christian theology under the rector's leadership.
Education for Ministry, administered through the University of the South's Beeckner Center at Sewanee, gathers a small group for a four-year study of Old Testament, New Testament, church history and theology, meeting weekly from fall to spring. A separate ministry works through the historic records of the parish to compile a written history of St. Columb's. For the parish's young adults, the curate organizes gatherings across the Jackson area.
The Lay Life of the Liturgy
Worship at St. Columb's is carried by a deep bench of lay servants. The Altar Guild prepares the nave and maintains the parish Customary under the rector's oversight. Acolytes, beginning in second grade and trained in house, carry liturgical objects and assist with the logistics of each service. Greeters meet arrivals at the door; ushers distribute bulletins and help seat the assembly; epistle readers and Lay Eucharistic Ministers serve the liturgy, with both roles offering in-house training and LEMs earning diocesan certification. Lay Worship Leaders, trained and certified by the Diocese, lead Morning Prayer or other services when clergy are absent. Livestream technicians run the cameras each Sunday. Funeral hospitality teams provide a reception - often a meal - for families after a parish funeral, and a Wedding Committee partners with Parish Wedding Coordinator Elizabeth Ducote to plan weddings in line with published parish guidelines.
Pastoral Care and Parish Life
A pastoral team led by Deacon Cathy Halford watches over the parish through birthday cards to members, care packages to college students, prayer shawls blessed by the clergy, and meals delivered to parishioners in need. Daughters of the King, a nationally recognized order of women in the Episcopal Church devoted to prayer and service, maintains a chapter at St. Columb's. Lay Eucharistic Visitors carry communion to those who cannot attend in person and keep an active list of pastoral concerns. A grief group meets to share the experience of loss.
Fellowship anchors the week as much as the liturgies do. The Episcopal Church Women hosts long-running events like Tablescapes and the Christmas Bizarre Bazaar. JOY, a women's group, meets on the first Tuesday of each month for shared reflection. The Men's Club gathers for cooking and parish projects. Other Club rotates from home to home with shared dishes. The parish book club, mostly fiction, keeps a steady reading list. And the parish's annual retreat, Parish Weekend, unfolds at Camp Bratton Green in northern Madison County - about a thirty-minute drive from the church - with cabins, a ropes course, a zip line, a pool, boating, fishing, crafts and a chapel Eucharist in the Chapel of the Holy Family.
IONA House on Claiborne Avenue
The mission-mindedness St. Columb's is known for today began in 1986, when Bishop Gray challenged the Diocese of Mississippi to feed the hungry. Parishioners responded by loading groceries into the trunks of their cars and delivering them to neighbors in need. A small house next door to the Claiborne Avenue church became the permanent home for what is now called IONA House, the Isle of Outreach for Neighborhood Assistance. The ministry stayed behind when the congregation moved to Ridgeland.
Today IONA House operates as a food pantry at 315 Claiborne Avenue in Jackson. Volunteers gather on Thursdays from 9 to 11 a.m. to pick up groceries, bag them, stock the shelves and clean, and on Fridays from 7:30 to 9 a.m. they hand out food to neighbors who come to the door. A Little Library outside the house offers free children's and adult books to the surrounding community. All labor is volunteer, and all donated dollars go to groceries and upkeep. Gifts can be made to IONA House through the parish's online giving page by selecting the fund from the dropdown menu.
A Wider Outreach
The parish supports other projects alongside IONA House. A partnership with Anne Smith Elementary Public School in Ridgeland collects school supplies at the start of the year and hosts a picnic at the end. A Clergy Discretionary Fund, administered by the rector and deacon, provides direct financial help to parishioners and neighbors in need. Habitat for Humanity draws volunteers from St. Columb's alongside three other Jackson-area Episcopal churches during a designated season. Angel Tree, run through the Salvation Army, places toys in the hands of children in the community. And members travel into Jackson to serve alongside Shower Power, an independently run shower and resource ministry.
Memorial Garden, Columbarium, and St. Francis Garden
The Ridgeland campus holds two quiet sanctuaries of remembrance. The Columbarium and Memorial Garden offers a final resting place for parishioners and their loved ones and a setting for reflection in the middle of the church grounds. The St. Francis Garden is dedicated to beloved animal companions, in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, patron of animals and ecology; inscribed memorial bricks can be ordered through the parish. The parish encourages members to prearrange their funerals; ashes may be interred in the Memorial Garden.
The parish is led by Rector CJ Meaders, Curate Gabbie Munn and Deacon Cathy Halford. Amy Amundson directs children's education, Anna Traylor directs the youth program, and Chrissy Hrivnak directs the choir. The parish name honors Columb or Columba, a sixth-century Irish abbot and missionary credited with bringing Christianity to Scotland, who founded the abbey of Iona. The parish office at 550 Sunnybrook Road is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.