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 God who calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves will seem hopelessly out of touch with your insulated life of self-sufficiency.
Today, people often bemoan the loss of children in the church.
We have now reached a point where many believe so strongly in individualism that nothing else matters.
But when God's Word of Law and Gospel are tuned up, when they're properly distinguished, then Jesus' words rain down on us like thunderbolts.
A single, fifteen minute sermon that proclaims Christ and him crucified for you is more important than hundreds of hours of lectures by experts on revitalizing your ministry.
The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously. The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Last year, a friend I follow tweeted, “Calling yourself a sinner is spitting on all the work that Jesus did to make you a saint.”
According to Martin Luther, it is human nature is a little like a drunkard trying to ride a horse.
Among the things that perturb me about modern Christianity is our residual clinging to a sort of “Christian-karma.”
The preacher does not merely send out the raven. From the pulpit flies forth the dove of the Gospel.
It is the strangest of morgues—people arrive dead as doornails and leave alive.
In his Gospel account, Luke challenges us to play "Where is Jesus?"