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 Christian is hard because it’s easy.
God cannot love me unconditionally without prerequisites, especially after all I’ve done, can He?
Either one of those verses alone is scary; but both of them together are terrifying!
As the story unfolds we see Luther’s Heidelberg theses on display, even before the Fellowship leaves Rivendell.
Faith does not require that we always Hoorah what the Lord does. God wants children, not brown-nosers.
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.
You cannot fudge Glory in this life. You get there only on the Better Day that is coming and not one day before.
To the Pastors and Preachers whose only word for me and others seem to be, "make sure you’re right with God!"
O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus he says to these bones. Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
Over the next few months, I invite you to join me in looking at what the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions have to say about the subject of worship through the lens of language.
This story is all-too-common, and illustrates a key dynamic driving the youth out of church.
God the Father Almighty is good. And He must be good in ways that surpass my earthly father.