WELCOME!
I'm Rick Barger, a retired pastor, author and nonprofit founder. For more than thirty years my work has centered on spiritual formation, congregational vitality and leadership, and on one question that is likely a question you carry too: what does it actually look like to live with the good news that the tomb is empty?
This is where I work at that in the open. Writing on the re-storied life, resources for congregations and their leaders, and the story of a long friendship with Haiti. All of it points toward the same thing: a life lived joyfully, hopefully and thankfully.
Stay as long as you like. The table has been set, and there is room at it.
— Rick Barger
Isaiah’s prophetic vision has become a guiding north star.
The prophet Isaiah says, “On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich foods, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
Isaiah 25: 6–9
Prophet Isaiah’s words carry weight, not just for individuals, but for all of humanity. They’re a vision of what happens when the promises of God become our everyday reality. We participate in the feast and the promise as if it is happening right now. We live the promised future. Our participation in God’s world is not that of passivity, but of active engagement – much like being at the table of a rich meal, knowing that our good God has come to dwell with all God’s people. More than an invitation to a feast, God’s invitation is to work for justice, peace and flourishing of all creation.
The mission of this website is simple: to help people, congregations and their leaders live joyfully, hopefully and thankfully, equipped with a new spirit that comes when one re-stories their life in light of Jesus’ empty tomb.
Human beings were created to flourish – not in the shallow sense of constant happiness or success, but in the deeper sense of becoming fully alive; grounded in love, marked by hope, awakened to grace, free to live honestly and courageously in a wounded world.
If you’re aching for a joyful, hopeful and thankful existence, a re-storied life is the path to flourishing, not just for you, but for the sake of the world.