Richard Plass

Maleness and femaleness is the fundamental way we carry our relational design. Interestingly, the English word sexuality comes from the Latin word sexus, which means “being divided, cut off, separated...

We are masters at creating an image, but we are novices at recognizing and repenting of the image we have created.

I (Rich) remember a time while serving as a young pastor at Peace Community Church. At the beginning of my sermon every single Sunday an elderly believer in the church tilted his head to the right and...

What often continues to shape our stories (interpretations) are the implicit emotional responses to our wounds. We must be willing to attend to our wounds and address the emotions embedded in our woun...

God has always had a people, a community through which God draws the world to himself. If we want to understand the character and purpose of God we must look to the community of God’s people. Embedded...

The truth about significant soul transformation is this—change is possible, but it is harder than we want and takes longer than we expect…. real change requires more than willpower and easy, simple st...

My first recollection of real suffering occurred when I (Rich) was about eight and my uncle had died of leukemia. When Uncle Art finally succumbed, my parents brought me along with two of my sisters t...

Suffering has no answers. But it does carry an invitation. It invites us into mystery. It invites us to surrender without explanation to something we cannot understand. In the dark helplessness of our...

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

Maleness and femaleness is the fundamental way we carry our relational design. Interestingly, the English word sexuality comes from the Latin word sexus, which means “being divided, cut off, separated...

As we share our story in the context of God’s story there is a transformation that cultivates an openheartedness. God offers us the gift of a reinterpreted life by means of the story of Scripture. Thi...

When we speak of Christian living as a learned craft, we have a particular image in mind, that of an apprentice serving for years under the tutelage of a master. This is what my (Rich) grandfather did...

Not every emotion needs expression, but every emotion needs recognition.

The soul’s first task is to learn to trust, because our capacity to trust is our capacity to love and be loved, to give and to receive.

The primary factor that determines the pattern a child will land on is trust. Trust is born and nurtured in the infant through the consistent and reliable care of the primary caregivers. Trust is the ...

We are relational beings because we are created in the image of a relational God.

We were created with this relational likeness and we long for relational connection because God exists in a relationship of love.

Why do we feel so much energy in our sexuality? Because we are created by and for intimacy. Our sexual energy is proof of our relational essence. We can hardly stand a “divided” condition because we a...