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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Our Lord has told us not to make these fine distinctions in grades of sin.
The accusations of the voices we hear on a daily basis are deafening. There is no shortage of voices that will remind us of our failures.
I walk in the local mall for exercise several times a week. I purposely avoid weekends and hours when the mall is likely to be crowded because, while I am not a racewalker, I do like to keep up a steady pace as opposed to stopping, starting and inching and this is difficult to achieve even when there are few people around.
A confessing church is a church more worried about souls than appearances, family lines, or institutional bottom-lines.
Just when we think we had it all under control, Christ breaks into the midst of our futile efforts to save ourselves.
How did you become a Christian? This question is frequently asked in many Christian circles. Ask it and you will get one of a thousand different answers, but each will probably start with the same pronoun.
What do the events of good stories, like The Lord of the Rings teach us about the rise and fall of civilizations in our own world?
In Christ we are already dead to sin and the eternal consequences of sin. “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,” writes Paul (Romans 8:1).
Renowned Scottish philosopher, writer, and historian Thomas Carlyle once quipped, “The History of the World [is] the Biography of Great Men.”
One of my favorite things to do in the summer is read out under the shade of my backyard tree. There, I have a reclining chair and small little side table.
This short series has attempted to show that many, if not all, of the attempts that have been made to reveal or identify tensions or error in Melanchthon’s theology.
As Wonder Woman hit theatres earlier this month and the reviews poured in, many of them carried the same sentiment: she’s the only hero in the DCEU thus far who hasn’t induced mixed feelings from the fans of the genre but instead has received near universal applause for getting the character right.