This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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The Christian who understands Gospel-based love recognizes the false promises and rewards of the Playboy Mansion.
The Sixth Sense is a suspenseful and scary movie where a little boy is born with the strange gift of seeing dead people.
Satan cannot stand the Gospel, and so he goes to work to undermine and render God’s Word an impotent and absurd message.
The wound on my hand would not let me forget what happened. The crackled and blistered strip of skin was a memento of the searing pain I felt that day. For the remainder of that year, I was constantly reminded of what I had done.
While Lynch might not be everyone’s cup of tea, he certainly paints a world that many of our neighbors can relate to: a strange place governed by inexplicable entities, causes and forces.
The Law though it does many things—restrains, exhorts the Christian unto righteousness, punishes—always rightly accuses and condemns sinners of their sin before a righteous, holy, and just God.
I hear voices in my head accusing me, telling me these sins will be there on the Day of Judgment unless I make atonement.
There’s something very attractive about both the cross-ladder and the cross-crutches. In fact, there’s something about both of them that the woodworker within us finds eminently more appealing than the simple cross of Jesus.
I spend a lot of time talking to people in coffee shops. Some share my Christian faith, some are exploring and questioning faith and others have left the church, having had a crisis of faith.
Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
During my recent trip to visit my daughter and her family, my son-in-law got me hooked on Leah Remini’s A&E show, Scientology and the Aftermath.
The only churches that live are churches that have died. That still die. And that rise to newness of life in Christ’s life alone.