A BOLTON church is celebrating after being recognised for an innovative project which helps to bring together the community it serves.

St Paul with Emmanuel Church's Community Cohestion Project was among 15 schemes to be highly commended at the Church for a Different World Awards.

Rev Fayaz Adman, Piers Hardy, a member of the church’s ministerial staff and Chan Parmar, of Bolton Hindu Forum were presented with the award by the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev David Walker.

The ceremony was held at Bishopscourt, in Salford.

Rev Adman, has been vicar at the church, in Cannon Street, Deane, for 10 years.

He said: “It’s a great honour that our service and ministry has been recognised by the diocese we have run this project since 2015 and this is the second award we have had for it.

“We are proud the project was the only one from the Bolton Deanery, so we were there to represent Bolton as well, and that makes us very proud that Bolton got this award.”

The awards celebrate the ‘inspirational and innovative’ work being carried out by churches across Greater Manchester whether through major or small scale projects.

And St Paul with Emmanuel’s Community Project includes three separate elements.

Bolton inter-faith Young Ambassadors sees young people from different faith groups, including from Hindu, Muslim and Christian backgrounds, meet weekly at the church building.

Faith Trails presents the Christian faith to different schools and public services around Bolton.

And the Farsi Bible Study and Support Group helps a mixed group of asylum seekers and refugees to become competent in the English language and more ready to integrate into the community.

Rev Adman added: “Everyone was very pleased because our congregation is a mixed congregation. We will continue with this project and our services to our community and our local people.”

St John the Baptist, in Little Hulton, also received a written commendation for its Mission Action Plan project.

Bishop David told the award winners: “I announced the Church for a Different World Awards last summer, inviting you to share good practice, help us learn from each other, and celebrate what is good. I have been delighted by the number and quality of applications for an award.

“The projects reflect our five priority areas of delivering church, addressing social injustice, nurturing people, spreading spirituality and transforming communities. I am very impressed with the range of projects demonstrated, and I hope that by sharing ideas, you might be encouraged to try new things that have been shown to work well in different contexts.”