Mark Woods

• Debt Saviours: Why for Christians Against Poverty, clients are never just a number

  Bradford-based Christians Against Poverty has grown from one man's vision 22 years ago to be a nationally-recognised force for good.

• What a 19th-century moral failure tells us about the future of missions

  The Bristol Baptist College building in the mid-80s, when I trained for ministry there, had a rather remarkable feature.

• In praise of peace and quiet: why lively churches aren't for everyone

  While attendance is patchy in other parts of the church, there's one indisputable growth area.

• Patriarchs in conflict: Could Ukraine's divisions cause a schism in the Orthodox Church?

  In the context of a shooting war that has left thousands dead and brought lasting poverty and instability in its wake, the struggle for control of Ukraine's churches might seem trivial. But it's being bitterly fought, and is inseparable from the wider conflict.

• What does the British Social Attitudes survey really say about Anglican decline?

  The number of Brits who self-identify as Anglicans has halved in the last 15 years, and our national church now claims the allegiance of only 14 per cent of us.

• Lucy Berry: Making things happen, one poem at a time

  She's a subtle observer of life and Christian life, able in a few lines of verse to reveal the pressure point where faith meets hypocrisy, or to nail a profound truth with a single striking image.

• Archbishop Welby is right: Social justice is a thoroughly Christian thing

  There's a deliciously synchronicitous irony about the release of two statements on social justice, both authored or part-authored by Christians, on either side of the Atlantic, within a day of each other.

• In an age of social media, why St Birinus just might be a saint for our times

  'A good and just man, who in carrying out his duties was guided rather by an inborn love of virtue than by what he had read in books.'

• Telling a better story: How India's Christians are fighting for dignity for Dalits

  The caste system, identified most obviously with Hinduism but present in Islam and Christianity as well, is at the root of some of the deepest and most pernicious forms of discrimination.

• I'm not 'broken', thanks – I'm just an ordinary sinner

  'Brokenness' is a word used almost always in Christian circles, and always approvingly.

• Why has Rwanda closed 8,000 Christian churches?

  Headlines in Western media saying an African country has closed 8,000 churches are always going to make Christians sit up and take notice.

• Church is not a business, says Soul Survivor's Mike Pilavachi – it's a family

  What's notable about 'Lifelines' is the way itdraws on the authors' personal experience and on their immersion in the real-life stories of God's people today.