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We offer daily services and a creative programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
Come and celebrate the hope and light that Christmas brings each winter
St James’s hosts inclusive services and a cultural programme. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate.
St James’s is a place to explore, reflect, pray, and support all who are in need. We are a Church of England parish in the Anglican Communion. This is a place for everyone who’s wondering about life’s big questions and striving for a better world.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word, drawing on St James’s rich cultural history including artists, writers and musicians Mary Beale, Mary Delany, William Blake, Ottobah Cugoano and Leopold Stokowski.
We try to put our faith into action by educating ourselves and speaking out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, earth and racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
We aspire to be a home where everyone can belong. We’re known locally and globally for our unique history and beauty, as well as faith in action, creativity and the arts, and a commitment to social and environmental justice.
We strive to be a Eucharist-centred, diverse and inclusive Christian community promoting life in abundance, wellbeing and dignity for all.
St James’s Piccadilly has been at the heart of its community since 1684. We invite you to play your part in securing this historic place for generations to come.
It costs us £3,500 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us
Your donation will help us restore our garden in Piccadilly as part of The Wren Project, making it possible for us to welcome over 300,000 people from all faiths and walks of life seeking tranquillity and inspiration each year.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
Directions on Google Maps
Nick Thasarathar, St James’s Operations Director, served as an Infantry Officer in the British Army and commanded a reconnaissance team during the 1990/1 Gulf Ward. He talks about how it’s not what you carry into the desert that counts, it’s what you bring out of it.
The deep desert is an unforgiving but honest environment; sullen seas of ochre sand stretch away to every horizon, risen and ebbed by wind and time. The rippling dance of heat hazes torment your imagination like a revolving mirror, reflecting only that which you bring there; because there is little else to feed them.
Over 30 years ago, sitting in a circle with my soldiers on the eve of battle, I reflected on this. On the horizon, a distant storm of B52 strikes rumbled on; deadly payloads tumbling from on high, flashing and spitting across the desert floor as they softened the enemy positions that we would be attacking the next day.
The only other thing to be seen was each other, made more visible and exposed by this barren backdrop and the circumstances that had brought us here. Looking around my small team, faces barely visible in the low glow of a communal cooking pot, a thought struck me. Whatever each of us had carried with us into the desert had been stripped bare by the time we gathered for this final meal. What remained was humour, humility, fierce camaraderie, and a unifying purpose. Those of us who survived the months that followed, left the desert, bringing those qualities with us.
So, my thought for the week is this; if we take time to tune out the background distractions and unite under a common purpose; the only other thing we need to bring to the task is ourselves; it is not what you carry into the desert that counts, it is what you bring out of it.