CAPACITIES OF ABUNDANCEBased on The Abundant Community

By John McKnight and Peter Block

2014

Capacities of Abundant Communities

KindnessGenerosity

CooperationForgiveness

Acceptance of FallibilityMystery

Kindness

Kindness is a relationship embedded with love, care and respect

It overlooks or accepts the frailties of the human condition.

Building blocks of kindness: music, dance, story telling

Generosity

Generosity is to make an offer for its own sake

Generosity emerges from the ground (properties) of abundance

Community abundance depends on generosity

Cooperation

Cooperation: “For me to win, you must win.”

Competition is a core value of scarcity. Cooperation is based on the belief that there is enough for each of us.

Caring for the whole and commitment to work something out.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the willingness to come to terms with having been wounded, to let it go and rebuild

We find a way to accept the dark side of our own past and somehow complete it

Fallibility

Acceptance of human limitations

We pray, do rituals, cultural ways of dealing with fallibility and tragedy

Frees us to use our gifts without fear

Mystery

Creating space for what is unknowable

Freedom from the burden of answers

Art, music, and ritual are ways to grasp the mystery in our lives

Assessing Capacities

Kind

ness

Gener

osity

Coope

ratio

n

Forg

iven

ess

Fallibi

lity

Mys

tery

00.5

11.5

22.5

33.5

44.5

5

whole congregationvestrylocal community