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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When orthodoxy becomes a Law, heterodoxy can feel like the Gospel.
He is significant, not as a founder of his own movement, but for setting the procrustean bed of the particularly American church with its dogmatizing yet broad ecumenical stances.
If man can save himself, what need is there for the cross or the Gospel?
When we get wrapped up in tying God down, when we worship and work in a way that seems good to each of us, it’s impossible to recognize God as loving Father and helpful Savior.
When Lamech named his newborn son Noah—which means “rest”—he said, “This one shall give us comfort from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed”
Being a member of a church connects people to the whole reason the church has for existing: that we might obtain justifying faith in Jesus Christ through Word and Sacrament.
The initial sin, therefore, was not the eating of the forbidden fruit but rather listening to a cynic question and intentionally misinterpret God’s goodness
If everyone would just live by the rules, the world would be a better place, wouldn’t it?
Martin Luther knew something about economics. Well, God’s economics anyway.
If I’m going to join your church, there’s some things I’ll need to know first. I need to know whether you practice a Christianity that’s primarily a to-do list.
I was once asked why I thought young people were leaving the church in droves after they graduated high school.
As one substance, Christ is God become man, the fullness of God who was pleased to dwell in Jesus Christ.