THE congregation of a Bolton church will be on national TV twice in the next month.

ITV will broadcast their live morning service from St Mary's, Deane, this Sunday.

And in the afternoon they will record another service which will be shown on Mothering Sunday.

During the live broadcast Bolton-born preacher Dr Colin Morris will give a sermon on the theme of "back to basics."

Dr Morris, whose family come from the Morris Green area, is a former president of the national Methodist Conference.

The morning service will be led by the vicar of St Mary's, Canon Roger Jackson. He said: "I have never been involved in a TV broadcast before but when Anglia TV asked us we were happy to agree."

But the Junction Road church itself has been under the TV spotlight before.

Two of Moll Flanders' numerous weddings were filmed at St Mary's for the recent ITV drama series.

The afternoon service being recorded for broadcast on March 9, Mother's Day, will be led by Christine Kilsby, deputy head-teacher of St Mary's Deane primary school.

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