six-word memoirs

6 word gospel memoirs, continued

/ jdunderwood / Leave a comment

I have this beautiful “flower” (I don’t really know what it is) in my yard. It looks a little like a heart, which makes me think of another 6-word memoir: God’s heart for me revealed: Christ.

Earlier this week (September 17) I wrote about 6-word memoirs and how they can show the gospel at work in our lives. Here are a couple of 6-word memoirs that readers sent in: “Saved by grace, continuing the journey” and “God found me. I am alive.”

The following quotes aren’t limited to six words, but they are great statements about the gospel. I kept finding more and more I liked, so I got a little carried away with the number I pasted in. Hope you enjoy them, too!

“There are only two ways that God’s justice can be satisfied with respect to your sin. Either you satisfy it or Christ satisfies it. You can satisfy it by being banished from God’s presence forever. Or you can accept the satisfaction that Jesus Christ has made.”
― R.C. Sproul, Choosing My Religion

“The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.”
― John Calvin, Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life

“The Law saith, Where is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction? The Gospel saith, Christ is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction.”
― Patrick Hamilton

“If the gospel is old news to you, it will be dull news to everyone else.”
― Kevin DeYoung

“Salvation is not a reward for the righteous, it is a gift for the guilty.”
― Steven Lawson

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
― Timothy Keller

“Never be content with your current grasp of the gospel. The gospel is the life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than a diamond. It’s depths man will never exhaust.”
― C.J. Mahaney

six little words

/ jdunderwood / 3 Comments

He does like green beans, but he’s more excited about the distorted reflection of his face on the side of the metal bowl! PJ’s six word memoir (according to me) would be “exuberant: finding the beat of joy.”

A few years back Smith Magazine (an online storytelling mag) issued its readers a challenge: write your life in 6 words.

Six little words.

The idea was based on the legend that Hemingway once wrote a story in six words: “For sale, baby shoes, never worn,” but SMITH took it further and asked readers to write their own stories. “Six-Word Memoirs” became a project, a “global phenomenon“ (I’m borrowing words from SMITH’s own Web site: http://www.smithmag.net/sixwordbook/about/, which has lots of great 6-word memoirs!), and a best-selling book series.

Somehow I didn’t hear about the “global phenomenon” until this past spring, but when I did, I wrote my own (more on that later).

When Dave began teaching Culture and Theology to high school seniors just a few weeks ago, he came home with this dilemma: “Many of them don’t seem excited about the Gospel. How are they going to get excited about how it can work in our culture?”

They can’t. Truthfully, none of us can get excited about the Gospel until we see it at work in our own lives. Only then will we be awed and fascinated by the ways God uses it to transform others.

So Dave backtracked in his class. “How has the Gospel impacted YOU?” he asked them. Not simply with initial salvation or coming to Christ (though he did some unpacking about the enormity of that), but what about since?

He showed them an online video ( http://gospeljourney.com/) that features spoken word artist Jason Petty. Borrowing from SMITH, it tells the Gospel in six words: “God. Our. Sins. Paying. Everyone. Life.” Dave combined the two ideas: Write your own Gospel story, he told his class. Yes, the Gospel at its core is the same: God has set us free for an abundant life made possible by the perfect death of His Son, but make it personal: what is He setting you free from? What is He setting you free TO?

I loved the idea and, of course, tried a few more of my own. My first one had to do with the fatigue of that day: “motherhood—overwhelming role. Who am I?” But then I began looking at my big-picture issues (people-pleasing, guilt, martyrdom, pride, etc.—there’s a lot) and I tried several others. When I compared these with the one I wrote last spring, they were similar.

Here’s my latest draft: “Recovering perfectionist, learning I am ‘Be-loved.’”

What’s yours?