Wesleyan Quadrilateral Wind Chimes (or how to make a wind chime)

A few weeks ago during our Wednesday night service at church a woman began talking about something I had never heard of before. I was born and raised in a Baptist Church. So until this woman came to speak, I had never heard of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. If some of you readers are Methodists, you may just skip over this part while I try to explain.

The Wesleyan Quadrilateral describes a method for reaching certain spiritual conclusions. When faced with a question the Wesleyan Quadrilateral suggests that we use:

Scripture-What does scripture tell us?

Tradition-What does the tradition of my church tell me?

Reason-What can I discern from this?

Experience-What has happened in my own life that would have bearing on this?

Someone later compared these elements to a wind chime, suggesting that this can not work on its own. But when each of these is touched by the Holy Spirit (wind) the result is musical.

I loved the metaphor of the wind chime and I knew that we would have to make one to hang at our house to remind us.

And Now For The Tutorial

We began with items we had on hand, which happened to be canning lids and rings. Birdy and Bug painted their rings in bright colors. The lids are metal, so they need an acrylic paint to stick. (THIS WILL NOT WASH OUT) if you don't want to deal with the stains, get a smock or take it outside and strip them down.

Once the paint was dry, the kids used a hammer and nail to punch holes in the tops and bottoms of the can lid. We used a block of wood to place underneath so we weren't hammering in to the concrete.

Once we had all of our holes ready we strung all of our lids and rings together and hung them on a thick stick we found in the yard. We made sure we had enough to have four parts hanging down from the stick to represent each of the four parts of the Quadrilateral.

And when the wind blows it sounds amazing! Truly beautiful!

It also fits right in to our 5 senses garden and I can say it is truly a joy to work in the garden and hear the wind blow across the chimes. If you are doing any gardening with your children this spring, link up below and let us know!