Outside the Lines

Coloring Outside the Lines:
Simple Rules That Will Change Your World

As Lent arrives in February, Hennepin church will embark on an exploration of a tiny book that is filled with big challenges. Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living is a book of 70 pages by Bishop Rueben Job. The book invites the reader to live their daily lives following three simple, yet challenging rules:

1. Do good.

2. Do no harm.

3. Stay in love with God.

His premise is that following these simple rules will not only align us with the ways of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, but also with Jesus, the founder of the Way. This may sound easy and simple. But like so many acts of simplicity these rules challenge the very ways of our world. That is where the 'coloring outside the lines' comes in. These three simple rules invite us to perhaps go against the grain, try new ways of being, go to places we never thought of, even places that make us uncomfortable.

Our Lenten devotional will use this same theme and will be filled with not only prayers, poems and stories of 'doing good', 'doing no harm' and 'staying in love with God' but will also be a coloring book filled with the artwork of Minneapolis artist Anne Brink. Watch for the many ways your colored pictures can be displayed around the church.

As a community we are dedicated to living into our fullness as people of faith, all ages together, learning from one another along the way. Members and friends have shared a prayer, poem, or essay using this theme and the result is our 2010 Lenten Devotional, available on and after Ash Wednesday, February 17.

What do these three simple rules mean to you?

How have you seen them lived out?

How might following these rules change our world?

Please Join us each week during lent as we explore these ideas! And make sure to get your copy of the devotional Ash Wednesday (February 17).