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We offer daily services and a cultural programme of talks, events and concerts. We seek to be a welcoming space for people to reflect, create and debate
From Sun 6 to 27 April
Breastplate will be displayed behind the altar of the Side Chapel and lit from below so that it glows from within, thereby revealing its feather-filled fragility and the talismanic contents of its pockets.
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.
We host a year-round creative programme encompassing music, visual art and spoken word.
We offer hospitality to people going through homelessness and speak out on issues of injustice, especially concerning refugees, asylum, racial justice, and LGBTQ+ issues.
St James’s strives to advocate for earth justice and to develop deeper connections with nature.
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.
The work of St James’s, it costs us £5,000 per day to enable us to keep our doors open to all who need us.
A reimagined St James’s realised. A redesigned garden, courtyard and new building capacity—all fully accessible— will provide beautiful spaces for all as well as improving our environmental performance.
Whether shooting a blockbuster TV series or creating a unique corporate event, every hire at St James’s helps our works within the community.
St James's Church 197 Piccadilly London W1J 9LL
Directions on Google Maps
In his Lenten reflection, Wilson Wong shares the struggle of decluttering both physically and spiritually, embracing Lent as a time to slow down, make space for God, and seek hope through simplicity, reflection, and community.
Unlike Christmas, with incessant reminders to mark the run up to December 25th, Lent always seems to arrive suddenly. Every year, I want to carve out time, to be still, to pray more, and to reflect. I also want a Lent project – to refrain from alcohol (excluding celebratory Sunday, of course), to fast, to lose some weight, to restart exercise, to read a particular book from cover to cover, read the Bible more intentionally. All these intentions, until a friend said, let’s not get carried away – Don’t conflate Lent with activity, the inevitable disappointment and a sense of failure that goes with not having done enough.
Lent is more than a season- to give up something or contribute usefully – it’s an invitation to stand back from busyness, to examine our lives and to refocus and listen to God’s still small voice. And to that end, Rev Lucy Winkett once suggested that SJP people should give up BBC Radio 4, at which point I baulked. BBC R4 has for years been a constant companion, a witness to good times and tough, a presence at 2am -okay at that time it’s the World Service – while I worked on some PhD data. (I’m sure I’ll get an email soon about idol worship from on high!).
This year, I decided I would try to declutter and free up physical and mental space. Too many books and papers, and too much stuff. Too much current affairs and too many political horror stories. All eroding any sense of headspace to hope and to wonder.
So, I set a goal of spending at least an hour a day, clearing or cleaning. Perhaps using the declutter activity as a time for meditation/ reflection and thinking. And I hoped I would have opportunity during the 40 days to unlearn/ relearn/ challenge my assumptions of what God has set store for me the year.
Decluttering: Looking to hope
Theatre has been an important passion throughout my life. So, it seemed fitting to start Lent in Soho Place and watching Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson’s masterpiece, Kyoto. This was a dramatisation of how the world’s first legally binding emissions targets was achieved at the Kyoto Climate Change Summit of 1997 – when the impossible became possible. The Kyoto Protocol at COP3 is still a high-water mark in terms of climate consensus. A historical beacon of hope that contrasts with the deadening zeitgeist of 2025. A meditation on human spirit, of hope, of miracles.
Decluttering: Making time for learning and reflection
I signed up for Generous Faith: Our Wound is our Word Conference. An entire Saturday to reflect on wounds, my own grief, and failings, but also the wounding of my neighbour.
I’m introduced to another tradition on prophets and a vision of the possible by Rabbi Elisheva Salamo; Revd Azariah France-Williams’ journey of facing the normative gaze, the awe inspiring and intimidating journey of Rev. Dr. Canon Lauren R. Stanley during her workshop on Using Privilege for Prophecy, and the precious conversations with other sojourners at the conference. It was a wonderful day to open up, to share and to be in receipt of blessing.
These are the bright Lent highlights so far. There are other good moments, like the warm welcome to join and journey with the earth justice community here at SJP. In between, there are many moments of struggle, to find the headspace and place to stay open and receptive. There is a hymn that haunts me, not just for Lent, but especially at Lent – ‘The Summons’.
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
…
Will you love the “you” you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around,
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
This hymn fills me with hope and trepidation in equal measure. I’m sure I won’t be quite be ‘ready’ for Holy Week nor on Easter morning – a feeling of non-completion.
At the Generous Faith Conference we sang this poem by Lemn Sissay. And it’s enough to lift me up again.
‘How do you do it? Said Night
‘How do you wake up and shine?’
‘I keep it simple,’ said Light.
‘One day at a time.’
Dr Wilson Wong
2 April 2025
