Death Cafés for St James’s Church Piccadilly
Come join us, over (virtual) coffee and cake, to chat about death.

Death Café is an international movement that offers safe places for people to explore their thoughts about death, and to discuss them with others. For the St James’s community, we will hold a series of facilitated, small group discussions using the online platform Zoom.

• Wednesday, 1 April, 1pm – 2pm
• Friday, 3 April, 10am – 11am
• Saturday, 4 April, 2pm-3pm
• Tuesday, 7 April, 8pm – 9pm

 
Additional sessions will be scheduled in due course.  The facilitator, Lia Shimada, is Associate Chaplain of Whitelands College and a professional mediator. She runs the Death Café programme at Brompton Cemetery, where her infant son is buried. To register for a discussion, or if you are interested in participating at a later date, please email Lia at lia@liashimada.com. Please include the date and time of your preferred session.

Update 23/3/2020
Though closed to public worship, churches were able to remain open for private prayer. That has now changed. The London bishops issued this new instruction yesterday evening. All London Diocese church buildings are to be closed.

See also

• Latest news from St James's on the Covid-19 outbreak
• Our resources page - 'shut but not closed'

On the advice of the Archbishops we have suspended all public worship for the forseeable future. This means there won't be any Communion services or other services on Sundays or during the week. Prayers will still be said by the clergy and vergers each day in church, but no public services will be held. We shall shortly update this, with additional news about other events that take place at St James's.
Lucy Winkett Rector

• More here
  

NB Our Lent Contemplative Space programme is also suspended with immediate effect

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED
Thursday 19 March at 7.00pm St James’s Church, Piccadilly
Queer Theology is a growing topic that is helping form stronger foundations for LGBTQ+ Christians who want to explore their faith while affirming their God-given humanity. Join us for an evening of exploration with a panel of clergy from across London hosted by Circus Spirit, St James’s 20s and 30s group, in the hope of creating stronger Christian LGBTQ+ community within church and beyond.

The Covid 19 virus and St James’s Church
For public health reasons all events at St James's have been cancelled.  See more here

This is your opportunity to get involved in helping to shape the future of St James's
This year’s Annual Meeting of Parishioners and Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) will take place on Sunday 19 April commencing at 1.30pm. Follow Read More

Eco pilgrimage to Knepp Wildland Saturday 25 April
Knepp is a 3,500 acre estate just south of Horsham, West Sussex. Since 2001, the land – once intensively farmed - has been devoted to a pioneering rewilding project. Using grazing animals as the drivers of habitat creation, and with the restoration of dynamic, natural water courses, the project has seen extraordinary increases in wildlife. Extremely rare species like turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons and purple emperor butterflies are now breeding here; and populations of more common species are rocketing. For further details see: www.knepp.co.uk/home

This is a self-guided visit, so there is no cost apart from train/bus fares. For more information, speak to any member of the Eco Church team or email ecochurch@sjp.org.uk

GATHERINGS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED BUT YOU CAN STILL DOWNLOAD AND
USE THE LEAFLET AT HOME OR WORK
A weekly space for prayer, readings and silence, throughout Lent.
Tuesday 3 March-Tuesday 7 April 2020
Download the booklet here or collect a copy in church

Would you like to sing in our G F Handel Messiah for Holy Week on Monday 6 April at 7.00pm?
St James’s is pleased to announce a liturgical performance of our 80-minute selection from Handel’s Messiah, interleaved with the story of the Passion. The choir will sing five choruses; four professional soloists will sing some of the beautiful solos, and all members of the congregation are invited to join in singing the two hymns that open and close the performance. There will be six choir rehearsals before the day of the performance... (click Read More)

We have dates for the ordination of two former members of our community and our new Curate

• Susy Brouard will be ordained deacon at Christchurch Cathedral Oxford at 2pm on Saturday 4 July. She is to be assistant curate at Kidlington with Hampton Poyle. She would absolutely love it if some St James’s people could go to her ordination, no tickets required. Contact her on discosusy@btinternet.com 
• Georgina Elsey will be ordained deacon at St Paul’s Cathedral London (time TBC) on Saturday 4 July. She is to be assistant curate at St John’s Hyde Park and would similarly love it if some St James’s people could go to her ordination
• Mariama Ifode, our new curate, will be ordained deacon at St Paul’s Cathedral at the same service
  
  Please contact the Parish Secretary, David Hamilton-Peters, if you would like to attend: secretary@sjp.org.uk
  

The PCC invites you to join the discussion on
all things St James’s in a World Café format with a simple lunch, lively conversation, and prayerful consideration of our future.

What is an ‘inclusive church’? How can we be more ‘adventurous’? How can we prepare well for the redevelopment project? Do we have our priorities right as a church? What about Planned Giving?
Join the discussion and have your say . . .

• Sunday 1 March 1.00pm-2.30pm: Mission
• Sunday 5 April 1.00pm-2.30pm: Place
• Sunday 24 May 1.00pm-2.30pm: Money
  
• Sunday 21 June 1.00pm-2.30pm: Space

This is just one of hundreds of comments made as part of the PCC's survey of our community, friends and contacts. Thank you to everyone who responded.  See the report, here

We are saddened to hear of the death of Margarita, who has been associated with St James's over many years. She previously served as a member of the PCC and as Treasurer.  We send our condolences to her family. 
May she rest in peace and rise in glory.

The funeral took place at St James's on Saturday 15 February 2020

Would you like to be baptised or confirmed this Easter?
During Lent each year, members of St James’s Church follow a short course of preparation and are then baptised or confirmed at St Paul’s Cathedral. If you’re thinking about doing this, please speak to The Revd Daniel Norris after the service this morning. Alternatively, you can express your interest by emailing the parish secretary, David Hamilton-Peters at secretary@sjp.org.uk. Daniel will be leading a weekly confirmation preparation group on Sundays during Lent at 1.05pm. The confirmation service itself is on Saturday 11 April at 6.00pm at St Paul’s Cathedral. If you’ve already been baptised (in any Christian denomination) then you can be confirmed, and if you have not been baptised (christened) then you would be baptised and confirmed at the same time.

Introduction For 8 years, St James’s Church has developed and run the ‘Camino course’, a 12 week course meeting fortnightly on a Wednesday evening from Advent (December) to Ascension (May). Named after the Camino pilgrimage route in Spain, Camino (meaning ‘pathway’) is a chance for up to 25 people at a time to get to know each other, learn, discuss, pray, and explore their faith in an open and inclusive spirit.

Because of demand, it has not been possible for participants to repeat the course and the desire has been expressed for more opportunities to travel together through life’s adventures and challenges as a congregation and community.

Camino Companions We invite anyone who would like to, to develop with us a longer term companionship, travelling with Christ and walking with each other. Centred around silence and a simple celebration of the Eucharist, followed by a chance to talk, becoming a companion along the Way for each other will give us a chance to deepen existing friendships and make new ones. The word ‘companion’ means ‘one we break bread with’, giving expression to the prayer we say every Sunday ‘we are all one body because we all share in one bread’ (Click 'Read More')

John, who is to join the clergy team as St James's as Associate Rector, writes:  "At the start of Advent 2012, I first joined the congregation at St James's. I was a human rights lawyer and university lecturer, fresh from six months in Alcoholics Anonymous, which had triggered a massive Christian conversion. I arrived bewildered by what was happening to me, awkward and self-conscious, and kept bursting into tears whenever the Eucharist was being celebrated. And St James's welcomed me with open arms. I started confirmation preparation, which was fantastic, but I had a nagging sense there was something more. Within a couple of months I went to Lucy and blurted out 'I think I'm meant to become a priest!' Instead of laughing and telling me it would wear off (as I imagined she would), she wanted to know more about the story of my life and what I knew of God and we began ordination discernment. Since then I've spent a year as a parish assistant in Manchester; three years living with the monks in Mirfield, West Yorkshire; and three years serving as a curate in Chelsea. It's a glorious surprise to be coming back to St James's as a priest and I look forward to meeting old friends and making new ones. As I began training, important people told me that St James's Piccadilly wasn't very 'representative' of the Church of England. Seven years later, I can confidently affirm they are entirely correct! But I wish it wasn't like that so I am coming back to immerse myself in St James's and its people and learn all about the hidden wiring and secret ingredients in the hope I might carry some of that forward into whatever God has in store for me next."

27/10/2019, Hugh writes: "I shall be leaving St James’s on 26 January 2020 after more than twenty seven years here as one of its clergy, and thirty years after my ordination (is that possible? It seems like yesterday).  I have been something of an irregular cleric, in so far as I have viewed working full-time in the so-called secular world as the principal focus of my life as a priest. (If anyone is interested in a short explanation of this, I’ve posted something at www.passingthrough.uk/leavingchurch).

For a long time I’ve thought that because my vocation arose within the context of my paid work (I have tried to follow the model of the worker-priest), then once I stop that, it will be the time to quit as an active priest licensed to a parish. To my mind there is a logic in this, and more importantly, a faithfulness to my vocation as I have understood it all these years. I expect to retire from paid (secular) work in two to three years' time.  The reason for this step now, and ahead of that, is because to finish both full time paid work and my active work as a priest in a parish at the same time would be more of a major change than I want, or need, to experience. Both spheres have been very important ones to me, and, crucially, they have been spheres in dialogue with one another.  My time at St James’s has been, for me, a truly wonderful and hugely stimulating time. I am more grateful for this than I can say."

Hugh will be the preacher on Sunday 19 January 2020 and the celebrant on his last Sunday, 26 January 2020

News update (click 'read more') As some of you know, the West London Day Centre closed its drop-in service at Seymour Place,  over the summer, for a complete refurbishment. In early Autumn they took a decision no longer to be the organisation which refers people to our Westminster Winter Shelter.

We're delighted to welcome Sarah Howard-Jones, an Ordinand in her first year training at Ripon College Cuddesdon. The College has recently developed a different way of training priests. Ordinands spend two years embedded in a parish, alongside being at college. Sarah will be with us at St James's for two days a week (Sundays and Thursdays) for two years. Sarah writes:..."I am delighted to be joining the congregation and wider community of St James's.  As a lifelong Londoner, I feel a connection with St James's through playing in chamber music concerts here, being inspired by the visible and generous missional activity of the church, and knowing the church itself as a place in W1 to step into to sit and pray.  I look forward to many conversations with you all over time and hearing about things that are part of God's witness here, both seen and less seen.  For the past 18 years I've worked 20 minutes walk down the road, as a civil servant in central government in quite a number of social policy areas.  I've lived and worshipped across London over time, at Southwark Cathedral and at All Saints Fulham.  I now live in zone 4 of west London, with my two children and overseen by our cat."

In 1788, St James's purchased land close to the present-day Euston Station as an additional burial ground. It was in use from 1790 to 1853. It is now to be built over as part of the HS2 extension to Euston Station. Read more here

21 July 2019
Some news from Lindsay

UPDATE: Lindsay's last St James's Sunday will be 15 September. Please join us, after the 11am service, for a party to thank her for her enormous contribution to the life of St James’s.

"After very nearly 14 years serving on the clergy team here at St James’s, the time has finally come for me to move on. Many will know that during my time in London, theatre chaplaincy has become a real passion of mine. Beginning in October, as a 3-year pilot project with London Diocese, I will be pursuing theatre chaplaincy full-time. My final Sunday at St James’s will be mid-September – date to be confirmed. For most of the last 14 years, I’ve found it very hard to imagine leaving St James’s, or what on earth you go on to do after being on the clergy team here, so amidst the inevitable sadness of leaving, I feel extremely blessed and a real surge of joy at being called to -  and given -  such an exciting new opportunity.

I’m also excited and delighted that St James's can look forward – in time – to welcoming a new, enthusiastic and energetic Associate Rector to do great things. The successful candidate will be one of the luckiest priests in the Church of England!"

Our many church community events often involve preparing and serving food and in a bid to make this run even more smoothly, we are developing a pool of volunteers. Would this interest you?

Your level of commitment is entirely up to you - from twice a year to once a month, from chopping carrots to overseeing the catering for an event … it's entirely up to you - we welcome anyone who would like to serve our community in this way.

Training opportunities will be provided for those who want to get more involved.
Please contact kitchen@sjp.org.uk to express an interest

The Southwood Garden at St James’s has, once again, been recognised by the Green Flag Award Scheme as one of the best in the world. This international award, now into its third decade, is a sign to the public that the space boasts the highest possible environmental standards, is beautifully maintained and has excellent visitor facilities.

Congratulations to our gardener, Catherine Tidnam, and to all involved with the upkeep of our beautiful and sustainable garden. The Green Flag Awards Scheme is run by the Environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy, under licence from the Department of Communities and Local Government