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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At times, evangelical Christianity can be a paradox. For as much as Protestants have spurned Roman Catholicism, they’re much more Catholic than they’d ever like to admit.
God is the God of failures, for He became one for you. There is no failure of ours that is bigger than Jesus’ cross, no sin of ours that can overshadow the cross.
Advent accents preaching, making known that it is the Lord who comes to bring salvation, to proclaim this in all the earth.
There is a difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ.
Without the “simul” distinction, theology lapses into moralism.
Many Christians are worried—perhaps legitimately—that the state is a short step away from turning the Law of God into hate speech and silencing the legal preaching of God’s Word.
As I was reading Romans 7 today, I was reminded of a pivotal scene in one of my favorite movies, As Good As it Gets.
Nicodemus, like us, does not really have phantoms and dragons in his head. He has just one demon, one virus, one malady: he lives in fear.
That’s where a true encounter with God leaves you. Unable to point the finger at anyone else, all you can do is fall on your face, confess your sin, be absolved, and join the angels in singing, “Holy, holy, holy.”
Few smells are as pervasive as the smell of smoke. Anyone who’s sat around a campfire can attest.
Mordor’s bleak existence and the successful salvific mission of Frodo and Samwise is what makes Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings such a psychologically enjoyable epic.
The Church of Jesus Christ is and stays Jesus' Church whether we decide it is or not.