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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It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
Ash Wednesday's purpose is not to motivate our resolve to redouble our efforts to do better.
Reading includes, on some level, striving. Hearing, on the other hand, remains passive.
Even as he was dying, the heart of God poured itself out for the sake of sinners.
The further up and further into the season of Epiphany we get, the bigger the grace of God in Christ is, the brighter the Light of Christ shines, and the more blessed we are in Jesus' epiphany for us.
Repentance is meaningless unless we are willing to acknowledge who we are: sinners needing mercy.
You are the friend in low places. It’s only from this place that you are free to look outside yourself for the remedy to the issues that plague you and humanity.
In the Reformation, as in the tabernacle, God gave skill, artistry, and craftsmanship to put his Word in images so that through art, his Word would be revealed.
Jesus is the anti-Cain: a giver, not a taker.
Hymns were a means by which people were brought into direct contact with the Gospel that brought justifying faith. Set to music, they could readily memorize it, take it home with them, and rehearse its messages around the hearth and at work.
This is an excerpt from “The Pastoral Prophet: Meditations on the Book of Jeremiah” written by Steve Kruschel (1517 Publishing, 2019).