[3][4] Presenters of the show have included Kwame Kwei-Armah, Geoffrey Wheeler, Michael Barratt, Cliff Michelmore, Sir Harry Secombe, Alan Titchmarsh, Roger Royle, Debbie Thrower, Bruce Parker, Ian Gall, Martin Bashir, Huw Edwards, Eamonn Holmes, Kenneth Kendall, Josie d'Arby, Jonathan Edwards, Steve Chalke, David Grant, Bill Turnbull, Sally Magnusson, Diane-Louise Jordan, Connie Fisher and Dan Walker.

Guest presenters have included Sir Cliff Richard, Gavin Peacock, Michael Buerk, Pete Waterman,[5] Ann Widdecombe[6] and Caron Keating.

[7] The current main presenters are Aled Jones, Katherine Jenkins, Sean Fletcher, Kate Bottley, Brenda Edwards, Claire McCollum, JB Gill, Katie Piper, Laura Wright, Pam Rhodes, Gemma Hunt, James Lusted, YolanDa Brown, and Radzi Chinyanganya.

The show has included interviews with Tony Blair, Frances Shand Kydd, Alan Ayckbourn and members[vague] of the British Royal Family.

[17] A live audience of over 60,000 people came to sing hymns, with a 6,000 piece choir, an orchestra of 100 harps, the band of the Welsh Guards and an anthem specially written by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber.

The Bishop of Lichfield Jonathan Gledhill, said the early recording was not a "deliberate deceit" but would give "an air of unreality" to the Easter programme, while a BBC spokeswoman said it was "common practice" to film two shows at once due to the costs in setting up lighting rigs, especially in a large cathedral.

The 16 August 2015 broadcast, filmed at an Ethiopian Orthodox church in the Calais jungle, received criticism from the media including the Daily Express, who stated the BBC was "out of touch" and that the show had "political propaganda".

[19][20] In response, the Anglican Bishop of Leeds Nick Baines and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby defended the BBC's decision as reflecting the Church's teachings on poverty.

The role of the television show, which is essentially about Christian faith, means the only way in which it can authentically fulfil its mandate is to deal with the tough issues of life, alongside the joys, faced by individuals as well as whole communities.

Amongst the shows that I remain most proud of were those we made in South Africa, soon after Nelson Mandela was elected president, about the struggle against Apartheid, and another special programme I co-presented with Sally Magnusson the weekend after the Dunblane school massacre.

[24] The show has been accused of "abandon[ing] its long-standing commitment to straightforward hymns and 'ordinary' people talking about their often very extraordinary lives and faith and becoming increasingly obsessed with celebrities and soft-focus schmaltz".