9: Incorporating Gifts
Reconceiving Problems. “Mistakes are re-evaluated as possibilities of new directions. . . . Rightness is more a question of attitude, not of what you do but of how you do it, whether you are prepared to play with what comes along.” “opportunity given to the church by discovering that it lives in Act Four of God’s drama. It no longer has to assume that it must make the story “come out right.” God will deal with that in Act Five. The church is therefore free to play.”
Presents. Shift the emphasis from the giver to the receiver.
Over-accepting. “Over-accepting fits the remarks of the previous actor into a context enormously larger than his or her counterpart could have supposed. This is exactly what the Christian community does with offers that come to it from wider society. It over-accepts in the light of the church’s tradition and story seen in eschatological perspective—a perspective much wider than urgent protagonists may have imagined.”
Jesus and Over-accepting. Jesus ministry is littered with instances of over-accepting. The essence of over-accepting is going the second mile. Lots of examples in this section.
Two Stories. Two stories of over-accepting.
Excerpt From: Samuel Wells. “Improvisation.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/improvisation/id473939687?mt=11