‘For such a time as this’
Our Vision for St James's - Sun 28th Feb at 12noon
​
Join us for a Special Sunday Forum after the 11am Eucharist on Sunday 28th February to hear more about the results of the ‘Unlock’ consultation 2020, the new vision statement, visual identity, what we are doing with the grants we’ve received and our plans for the future. 
​
There's plenty of time for a Q&A too. Everyone welcome!  

​The Zoom meeting opens directly after the Sunday service has ended: Click here for the Zoom link. Meeting ID: 812 8848 2895 | Passcode: 297754. Find your local dial-in number here. ​

Click here to read our Weekly Update including news of a special Sunday Forum meeting on 28th Feb.

​Our Contemplative Liturgy this month will be held on Sunday 28th January at 3pm on Zoom. 
​         
​If you are in the fortunate position of having some outside space, please do Zoom from outside, or from a window/door with a view. Alternatively, you might like to collect a leaf, flower, stone or shell before the liturgy. Participants will be invited to speak about their experience in their garden, view or object if they would like to.  
​
The session will be open from 2.50pm. Arriving before 3.00pm will enable any glitches with audio or video to be sorted.  You are welcome to stay a while afterwards to chat with others. We are especially interested in more sustainable ways of living that you have adopted. 
 
Please email ecochurch@sjp.org.uk in order to get the Zoom link and liturgy sheet. Those attending regularly will receive an email with the details.

Words for the Wilderness
Soft Words for Hard Times

Words for the Wilderness is Theatre Chaplaincy UK's 2021 Lent programme. Each Wednesday in Lent (until 31st March) a new video will be released on their YouTube channel here featuring a wonderful actor reading a poem chosen to reflect not just the themes of Lent, but also of the pandemic.

Readers include Rakie Ayola, Samantha Bond, Sheila Hancock, and Giles Terera.

Each poem feeds into Late Night Lent - half an hour of candlelit contemplation with stillness and silence and an Afternoon Discussion Group every Friday from 2.30-3.30pm on Zoom.
Email theatrechaplain@gmail.com for the Zoom invitation.

Click here to watch The Revd Lindsay Meader's introduction to Words for the Wilderness.
Click to here to watch Samantha Bond reading Lent by Jean M. Watt

Pictures l to r: Rakie Ayola, Samantha Bond, Sheila Hancock, Giles Terera

Click here to read our Weekly Update including Ash Wednesday Eucharist at 6.30pm tonight (17th Feb), Lent Contemplative Space, and Lent Study Course.

Today, in marking Racial Justice Sunday, St James’s clergy team states its  support of and welcome for Revd Jarel Robinson-Brown, soon to be a curate in the Two Cities Area.  As a diverse group ourselves, we affirm the importance of a White majority church standing up for its Black clergy. We recognise the theological critique Jarel has offered and we condemn without reservation the racist and homophobic abuse that he has suffered.  We are called not only to preach but to live the Gospel of social justice as embodied in Jesus. We hold in prayer all in positions of leadership and influence, as we pledge to work together for structural and systemic change. In recognising that words are not enough, we will actively seek ways to join the movement of the Holy Spirit in dismantling assumptions, practices and institutional mechanisms that perpetuate racial injustice in our Church and society, acknowledging that this work begins with us. 

The Reverend Lucy Winkett
The Reverend Dr John Russell
The Reverend Dr Mariama Ifode-Blease
The Reverend Dr Ivan Khovacs
The Reverend Daniel Norris 

​Lent Contemplative Space
19th Feb - 26 Mar: Mon, Wed, Fri

A regular space for prayer, readings and silence on Zoom. Please email David at secretary@sjp.org.uk for the invitation.
​
Each session will be facilitated by a member of the St James’s Church community and will include a welcome, guided silence, a scripture reading, a poem, a prayer, and time to share reflections. 

​Download the resources here.

Click here to read our Weekly Update including Ash Wednesday Eucharist (17th Feb), Lent Contemplative Space, and Lent study course.

​ 

You are invited to a Zoom gathering
of Contemplative Prayer and Shared Silence for a new Community project.
​
AFTERMATH: WEEDS & WILDING
Sunday 21st February, 3.00-4.00pm
 
To receive the Zoom link please email: churchwardens@sjp.org.uk

Once our bread has been baked for a shared Eucharist, the Daily Bread project is complete. After growing wheat, we wondered about growing weeds? Specifically, the 43 species listed in a recently discovered archival document, recording the prolific weeds that sprang up in the aftermath of the bombing of St James’s Church in 1940. 
  
Click here to see the proposal and scope for the project.
 
We hope the Zoom gathering will enable us to prayerfully reflect on how the project could develop and whether you might wish to collaborate?
 
Are you a Crafter, Sewer, Artist, Gardener, Botanist, Theatre-maker, Traveller, Author……? 
 
As you see, the scope is very broad; we hope you are as excited as we are!

Click here to read our Weekly Update including news of a Community Award for our Winter Shelter Coordinator and a panel discussion on  Theologies of Migration and Community.

Thursday 11th February at 4.00pm
​live streamed from St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Hosted by the HeartEdge initiative, this panel discussion will focus on Mapping Faith: Theologies of Migration and Community edited by Dr Lia Shimada, geographer, theologian, and member of St James's congregation.


​In this interactive session, panellists Pádraig Ó Tuama, Sofia Rehman, Rabbi Robyn Ashworth-Steen, and Lia Shimada (chair) will discuss ways in which sacred religious texts shape, and are shaped by, migration and community. Tickets are free, but registration is essential via Eventbrite here.

Mapping Faith: Theologies of Migration and Community (published by Jessica Kingsley, 2020) brings together over 35 writers, poets, artists and practitioners, from primarily Jewish, Muslim and Christian backgrounds. Royalties from book sales will be donated to the Helen Bamber Foundation, with whom HeartEdge has a longstanding relationship.

For those of you who might be interested in purchasing a copy of the book, the publisher has arranged a 25% discount through its website here. Paperback discount code: MAPPING and E-book code: B25D9F4

We're thrilled to announce that Debbie O'Brien has been honoured with a Mayfair & St James's Community Award. Debbie has won in the 'Putting Something Back' category which looks to those who have benefitted the local community through their actions.

For the past ten years, Debbie has coordinated the Winter Shelter at St James's, working with a team of volunteers from the congregation and beyond to offer hospitality to our guests experiencing homelessness. She has accepted the award on behalf of all in our community who have given their time and talents, and she writes:
​
'Being part of a community means receiving and giving.  It has been a huge joy and privilege to be placed here in this community (and in my case at St James’s Church) and for the past decade to create a space where volunteers and guests, experiencing homelessness, have been able to give and receive hospitality: hot meals, shelter and creativity – of all sorts!

Its been a space of opportunity where I have met so many people, and businesses, who are local who wanted to join in giving back – with time, goods, money, their own passion. A space without borders – bringing together a community of people, whether resident, working, being a tourist, or invisible, sleeping on the streets. Each year I use my favourite quote which I think is also exactly what the Community Awards remind us of, and capture the essence of what it means to be in community – something more important now than ever, and not to be lost. ‘It is in the shelter of each other that the people live’

The Revd Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James's writes:
​
In London, as all over the world, we have learned over the last 12 months how important it is to build community in good times and in bad. In central London, our neighbours are not only the people who live near us but the people we work with, the people who visit and the people who sleep on the streets. The Community Awards are  a great way of recognising and remembering that it’s so important to build community wherever we are, and whatever our own creed, background, experience or identity.

The Community Awards of Mayfair & St James’s celebrate the sense of community in these twin districts by recognising the people and businesses that help create and maintain the spirit and ethos of the area.

Epiphany lockdown study and reflection
Sun 31st Jan and Sun 7th Feb at 4pm on Zoom

During the Epiphany lockdown, Lucy Winkett and Sarah Howard-Jones are leading two sessions of theological reflection on the Eucharist, not just as a service on a Sunday morning but as a pattern for life. 

The sessions will include some practical theology, some input, and also learning from one another how to connect with the Eucharist online, culminating in a reflective Eucharist, thinking about each element of the liturgy as it is prayed. Please email David at secretary@sjp.org.uk for the Zoom invitation to both sessions.

Click here to read our Weekly Update including two sessions of theological reflection on the Eucharist during lockdown, and recruitment for a part time Food Hospitality Outreach Coordinator.

A message from our friends at The Iona Community.

The Iona Community is currently recruiting for staff at Iona Abbey and Camas outdoor centre in Mull.

We want to be ready to reopen as soon as restrictions ease in the summer and currently anticipate roles beginning around 1st May.


Applications must be received by 9.00am on Monday 1st February.

Current Vacancies:
Iona Administrator ● Deputy Housekeeper ● Programme Manager ● Sacristan
​Camas Activities Worker. ​For more information please click here.

Volunteering at Iona and Camas
Our volunteer programme in 2021 is running as usual. In addition, through our Unlocked programme, we particularly welcome applications from people whose lives and plans have been knocked off course by lockdown restrictions. For more information and how to apply please click here.

​​Our good friends at the Companions of Malta run our local 'donations hubs' that coordinate the distribution of donations to people experiencing homelessness.

​At this time, they are in particular need of men's and women’s clothes and shoes (not children’s clothes), toiletries (new please) and entertainment items (e.g. books/crosswords/puzzles/art and craft items).

​The donations are sorted, packed and delivered to hotels and hostels housing the homeless during the pandemic. You can deliver items to St Joseph's Hall, Brompton Oratory, 5 Thurloe Place, Knightsbridge, London SW7 2RR. Current opening hours: Wed 2–5.30pm and 6.30–7.30pm; Sat 10.30am–2pm. Or please contact Kate MacKenzie on london.companionsofmalta@gmail.com to enquire about other potential delivery times.  ​

Click here to read our Weekly Update, including a letter from our PCC and Clergy regarding the suspension of public worship during the lockdown.

On Thursday 7th Jan, we announced that we strongly affirmed the government guidance to please stay at home during the national lockdown and to instead join us for online worship. Nevertheless, we would keep a very limited number of places at the Sunday Eucharist for people for whom it is really important to attend church in-person and they cannot attend a more local church.

Today on the 8th Jan, the London mayor has declared a ‘major incident’ and specifically called upon places of worship to close. Consequently, we've now taken the decision to suspend public worship until further notice.

You can read a longer letter from our Rector and Churchwardens here.

SJP Eco Church for 2021

Please join us for a community meeting on Sunday 17th January at 3.00pm on Zoom.

2021 is a hugely significant year for the planet. The decade in which we must halve carbon emissions as a worldwide community has begun.

Three major UN conferences on Oceans, Biodiversity and Climate are scheduled. The climate conference will be in Glasgow in November. In the UK, a Green Recovery Plan from the Covid pandemic is proposed, and the second reading of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill is coming up in March.

The Church of England has committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2030, and faith communities across the world are joining together and taking action. At St James's Church we will launch a new vision and mission for the church in radically changed circumstances. And each of us has personal decisions to make about how we live our own lives.

What action should we take as a church community? Education? Campaigns? Liturgy? Creative projects? Partnerships?

Please come and add your voice to this discernment of what is ours to do in the middle of a pandemic in the middle of London. The format will include small breakout groups to enable everyone's voices to be heard.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81786574841?pwd=Qm5STVZxSndPdVBVVGlTRU95bGRxQT09
Meeting ID: 817 8657 4841
Passcode: 681020
One tap mobile
+442039017895,,81786574841#,,,,*681020# United Kingdom
+441314601196,,81786574841#,,,,*681020# United Kingdom 

If you are unable to come but would like to contribute, please email ecochurch@sjp.org.uk

Click here to read our Weekly News Update