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

The monsters we fight against and the monsters we become are drowned in the blood of the Lamb. Jesus' death, and the power of his resurrection, restore our humanity.
Pastors represent many things to many people, but their true calling is to serve as God's instrument for proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ for you for the forgiveness of sin.
Certainly, the people of Israel are being stubborn, unfaithful and untrusting but one may wonder if this issue is a deeper one. Are they afraid?
We were enemies, but because of the self-sacrificing love of Christ, we are made friends, indeed, even the adopted children of our Heavenly Father.
Jesus sits by the well as a shepherd, coming to offer this woman a life-giving stream.
Christ has forgiven you, and all of your worship, all of your prayers, all of your offerings are accepted because they are built on the foundation of Christ’s forgiveness.
When we pray, “Thy will be done,” we are praying a cosmic, grand and mighty prayer.
Into our world of sin, broken hearts, physical ailments, and psychological suffering, our Lord of grace descended.
Christ teaches that we are not lost, but have eternal life. That God has so loved us that he allowed the ransom to cost him his only beloved child.
Where our sins are forgiven, there God in Christ is to be found.
God and love are synonymous. Any talk about love that is not talk about Jesus is, at most, a half-truth.
The Church is called to be counter-cultural, to stand out in order that the world might see and hear the truth and be brought into the Kingdom.