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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Being a member of a church connects people to the whole reason the church has for existing: that we might obtain justifying faith in Jesus Christ through Word and Sacrament.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
When the Bible talks about bearing fruit, it’s not talking about what we must do to produce fruit.
You have heard that after his sufferings and death Christ our Lord arose from the dead and entered upon, and was enthroned in, an immortal existence.
The Gospel restores us to our true humanity, embeds us in the body of Christ, feeds us with Christ’s own body, and offers us a community.
How many of you Christians out there are barely holding it together? I know the inclination should be towards joy and hope, but for some of us, it's not.
Well it's simple really. I don't pray enough. I don't mean "enough" in the chronological sense like there is actually a right amount of prayer.
The initial sin, therefore, was not the eating of the forbidden fruit but rather listening to a cynic question and intentionally misinterpret God’s goodness
The prophets of old were right: we do resemble what we revere. Our anthropology is hijacked by materialism. We become just stuff who consume stuff and hope to have enough stuff to make life worth it.
If everyone would just live by the rules, the world would be a better place, wouldn’t it?
When we preach Jesus crucified for the sin of the world, Jesus crucified to put away God’s harsh judgment, that good news creates faith
Where contrition is evident, the conscience has already been prodded, piqued, finally terrified. More Law only serves to confirm the lie this person is already at risk of believing: that the last work of the conscience is also God’s last word. But God’s last word is the word of absolution, not the confirmation of the conscience’s testimony, but now its contradiction.