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.

All Articles

Have you ever wondered, of all the adjectives we could use to describe this day why in the world we chose the word “good?” Yeah, me too.
The creation is one of God’s good gifts and being cut off from nature and wild places, as we often are in the modern world, is probably not so good for us.
Like her Lord, the Church has dirt under her nails, the smell of coffin wood on her clothes, and a hunger in her belly.
If he was not flesh, who was hung on the cross? And if he was not God, who shook the earth from its foundations?
What on God’s green earth does dynamite, a chemical explosive, have to do with the Gospel of Christ?
This had been a lonely year, though. She could keep herself busy for a while with friends and she could distract herself for a few weekends by leaving town, but something was definitely missing.
True faith, saving faith that receives the good news about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is a faith created in us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel (Eph 2:8-9).
What would be a fitting thing to give up, especially during the season of Lent?
If you don’t believe Jesus Christ—that is, God in the man born of the Virgin Mary—died for the sins of the world, then you can’t evangelize.
Forgiveness of sin, righteousness, and eternal life aren't handed out by God because we deserve it.
In other words, they had too much religion and not enough Yahweh. Or, to put it in New Testament terms, they worked so hard at being religious that they put Jesus out of work.
Though they have never left the church, they have been lost all the while.