About Us
What is St Martha’s College?
St Martha’s College is the non-residential theological college for the Diocese of Guildford, offering a community to train leaders in mission and ministry in our local churches.
Created in 2025 to replace our Local Ministry Programme, our vision is to train 100 people to be sent into our churches and parishes each year to support their mission and ministry. We want to encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, and walks of life to explore their calling, so we have a church leadership that is representative of the communities they serve.
Our prayer is that the College is a Jesus-centred community of love and power in the Holy Spirit, deeply committed to mission and to the life and health of our churches.
Why St Martha?
St Martha’s College is named after Martha in the Gospels – a generous host who, just like us, needed to be reminded by the Lord to keep her heart fixed on him in the midst of the busyness.
Martha, her sister Mary and brother Lazarus are described as loved by Jesus, and she comes to make one of the most powerful declarations of faith in the New Testament
‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world’
Our diocese has one of only two churches in the country dedicated to St Martha. St Martha’s-on-the-Hill sits right at the geographical heart of the Diocese of Guildford, on the Pilgrim’s Way, a historic route running from Winchester to Canterbury.
This gives us a real living sense that the College is a place of encounter with Jesus, sitting at His feet, being led into deeper faith in Him. We are training those who have a sense of call (however early or slight that might be) to go on a journey of faith and discernment to become effective leaders in His service and mission.
