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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God coming to us at Christmas encapsulates the essence of Christian faith: we don't make ourselves strong and then work our way up to a strong God.
If the devil took over a church, I suspect it would be bursting at the seams every Sunday, with smiling faces, clean noses, straight morals, conservative voting, institutional fidelity
It’s time to call bull on a theology the dominates Christianity.
When we explain away God’s Word, we jettison the reality of our ominous diagnosis in the “Thou shall/shall nots” of the law, and with it the sweet cure in the, “This is My body/blood” of the Gospel.
We treat the Scriptures as if they’re our literary property to toy with as we please.
Either one of those verses alone is scary; but both of them together are terrifying!
At our churches must remain focused on the deep kick, the real deal, the thing itself. I’m not the first on this site to remind us that this is Christ himself.
To the Pastors and Preachers whose only word for me and others seem to be, "make sure you’re right with God!"
This story is all-too-common, and illustrates a key dynamic driving the youth out of church.
The term Gospel came to mean a new kind of proclamation so that the Law and the new doctrine [Gospel] are distinguished in such a way that the new doctrine gains primary influence.
Really, once you’ve heard and believed the Gospel, the goal now is to learn more and more about the law of God, so that you can mature into a commandment-keeping, law-loving, obedient disciple of Jesus. Right?
Christ alone has finished your salvation. Christ alone could and has made satisfaction for your sins.