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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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.
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.
We focus on what we have, what we don't have, and how and when God is going to give us what we need. This the opposite of faith.
However, right before I affirmed her proposal, it dawned on me, “Isn’t every worship service and Bible study for those struggling with faith, life, and fear?!”
"Are you Republican or Democrat?” “Liberal or conservative?” “Yankees or Red Sox?” “Star Wars or Star Trek?”
We sinners share a common problem when it comes to Jesus’ parables. We read them with an eye to our own righteousness.
The love of God in Jesus is our confidence when the world seems to teeter on the brink of self-destruction.
Not afraid, Jesus decided to take a different mode of transportation across the rough waters—his feet.
A confessing church is a church more worried about souls than appearances, family lines, or institutional bottom-lines.
What do we do when Christians are more focused on their doing for God than God's doing for them?
For every child in a mother’s womb, the whole host of heaven and earth, indeed God himself, intercedes.
One of the biggest challenges to the Christian faith is sorting through our question of “Where is God in the trials of our lives?”