What do you think?
Rate this book
Courageous Compassion: Confronting Social Injustice God’s Way
Through the eyes of Jesus, you will see those to whom He was drawn as potential men and women of God on a healing, life-changing journey. A challenge to our pale definition of compassion, the message of this book is bold, necessarily courageous, and disruptively life-transforming. If you let it, your worldview and life will be changed forever.
“Courageous compassion has many faces in many places around our globe. But like Jesus, it takes a bold compassion to bless, restore, and empower those whom the powerful view as weaker and less important.”—Dr. Beth Grant
Learn from people who enthusiastically feed the hungry, weep over alcoholics, start a hospital, care for hurting children, and powerfully share the Word of God.
Combining sound biblical insights with amazing stories of the sexually enslaved who have found freedom, Dr. Beth Grant demonstrates that spiritual darkness is more than a concept. Spiritual light is also a liberating, loving, healing, transforming reality.
- GenresChristianNonfiction
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 29, 2014
About the author
Beth Grant
21 books2 followersBeth Grant holds a PhD from Biola University and is the co-founder of a ministry to survivors of sex trafficking.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 12, 2019
A challenging, heartfelt read, Beth Grant's Courageous Compassion is formatted more like a textbook than a novel. With each chapter addressing another challenge and strategy for engaging in courageous compassion, there was little flow. This doesn't detract from the purpose of the book, just made me realize that I didn't quite know what I was getting with it.
The main message that I read between the lines here was basically to stop thinking there is an easy solution to major problems, short term missions can hurt more than help, and if you think you're called to missions, do it in your own community first. Very good realistic advice for the young energetic would-be missionary.
The main message that I read between the lines here was basically to stop thinking there is an easy solution to major problems, short term missions can hurt more than help, and if you think you're called to missions, do it in your own community first. Very good realistic advice for the young energetic would-be missionary.
May 8, 2024
Project Rescue’s mission closely reflects my own heart for victims of human trafficking. I already knew that this compassion ministry requires multifaceted approaches and collaboration with Spirit-filled individuals, but this book provided a deeper understanding of just how complex it is to serve these people. Regardless if you feel God calling you to specifically minister with Project Rescue (or a similar ministry), I strongly recommend reading this book.
Courageous Compassion also provides supplemental resources for further reading and discussion. The formatting is simple, and would work well in a group-study setting.
Courageous Compassion also provides supplemental resources for further reading and discussion. The formatting is simple, and would work well in a group-study setting.
April 8, 2022
This was a great book! Beth Grant did an amazing job writing it and challenging readers to be compassionate and kingdom minded!
July 30, 2014
Beth Grant, Courageous Compassion: Confronting Social Injustice God’s Way (Springfield, MO: My Healthy Church, 2014).
Paperback
/
Kindle
Rape is a shattering experience for the victim—physically, psychologically, and spiritually. When rape is institutionalized through sexual trafficking, this shattering experience is renewed daily, and the wounds fester, slowly killing a woman’s body, soul, and spirit. Unfortunately, it is estimated that 800,000 to 4,000,000 women and children are trafficked across international borders annually, with as many as 18,500 coming into the United States alone.
In Courageous Compassion, Beth Grant issues a clarion call to Christians to combat the horrific evil of sexual trafficking. Grant is co-director of Project Rescue, a ministry to victims of sexual trafficking that began in a red-light district of Mumbai, India, in 1997. In 2013, Project Rescue provided care for over 32,000 women and children victimized by sexual trafficking in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Spain. She is also a member of the Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking and coeditor of Healing Hands, which is that organization’s training manual for caregivers to victims of sexual trafficking.
Courageous Compassion lays out a strategy for “confronting social injustice God’s way,” as the book’s subtitle puts it. “There is no value-free social response to human need and injustice,” Grant writes. “All human response to human need and injustice is inevitably influenced by the values and worldview of the person responding.” Consequently, “any initiative focused on the injustice of sexual slavery and the restoration of victims developed by a Christian organization or mission should reflect the person and message of Jesus Christ.”
For Grant, confronting the social injustice of sexual trafficking requires more than political efforts to legally abolish such slavery, as valuable as they are. Rather, Project Rescue aims to intervene in the lives of women who have been trafficked, restore them holistically (physically, psychologically, spiritually), and prevent their children from being exploited in turn. This strategy utilizes, prayer, evangelism, discipleship, medical care, job training, and cooperation with local churches to accomplish those ends.
Among some American Pentecostals—Grant is an ordained Assemblies of God minister—compassion ministries that seek to rectify the problems of social injustice are viewed with suspicion, as examples of a liberal “social gospel” that replaces evangelism and discipleship with political activism. Courageous Compassion allays those suspicions—and does so entirely—by presenting a holistic Pentecostal approach.
Who should read it Courageous Compassion? Christians interested in issues of social justice. Pastors whose churches send short-term missions teams to countries to work on compassion projects. Missionaries—both current and prospective—who need to see what holistic ministry looks like. And scholars who work at the intersection of theology, the Church’s mission, and social issues.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
(Full disclosure: I am a friend of Beth Grant, and I work for the Assemblies of God, which is the parent company of My Healthy Church.)
P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page. Then buy the book! The Kindle version is available for download right now at the bargain price of 99 cents.
Rape is a shattering experience for the victim—physically, psychologically, and spiritually. When rape is institutionalized through sexual trafficking, this shattering experience is renewed daily, and the wounds fester, slowly killing a woman’s body, soul, and spirit. Unfortunately, it is estimated that 800,000 to 4,000,000 women and children are trafficked across international borders annually, with as many as 18,500 coming into the United States alone.
In Courageous Compassion, Beth Grant issues a clarion call to Christians to combat the horrific evil of sexual trafficking. Grant is co-director of Project Rescue, a ministry to victims of sexual trafficking that began in a red-light district of Mumbai, India, in 1997. In 2013, Project Rescue provided care for over 32,000 women and children victimized by sexual trafficking in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Spain. She is also a member of the Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking and coeditor of Healing Hands, which is that organization’s training manual for caregivers to victims of sexual trafficking.
Courageous Compassion lays out a strategy for “confronting social injustice God’s way,” as the book’s subtitle puts it. “There is no value-free social response to human need and injustice,” Grant writes. “All human response to human need and injustice is inevitably influenced by the values and worldview of the person responding.” Consequently, “any initiative focused on the injustice of sexual slavery and the restoration of victims developed by a Christian organization or mission should reflect the person and message of Jesus Christ.”
For Grant, confronting the social injustice of sexual trafficking requires more than political efforts to legally abolish such slavery, as valuable as they are. Rather, Project Rescue aims to intervene in the lives of women who have been trafficked, restore them holistically (physically, psychologically, spiritually), and prevent their children from being exploited in turn. This strategy utilizes, prayer, evangelism, discipleship, medical care, job training, and cooperation with local churches to accomplish those ends.
Among some American Pentecostals—Grant is an ordained Assemblies of God minister—compassion ministries that seek to rectify the problems of social injustice are viewed with suspicion, as examples of a liberal “social gospel” that replaces evangelism and discipleship with political activism. Courageous Compassion allays those suspicions—and does so entirely—by presenting a holistic Pentecostal approach.
Who should read it Courageous Compassion? Christians interested in issues of social justice. Pastors whose churches send short-term missions teams to countries to work on compassion projects. Missionaries—both current and prospective—who need to see what holistic ministry looks like. And scholars who work at the intersection of theology, the Church’s mission, and social issues.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
(Full disclosure: I am a friend of Beth Grant, and I work for the Assemblies of God, which is the parent company of My Healthy Church.)
P.S. If you found my review helpful, please vote “Yes” on my Amazon.com review page. Then buy the book! The Kindle version is available for download right now at the bargain price of 99 cents.
June 30, 2015
3.5 stars
Thank you to NetGalley and My Healthy Church for this free copy. In exchange I am providing an honest review.
When it comes to confronting anything, or anyone, I am most interested in doing it God's way rather than my own. I have racked up numerous failures when I take things into my own hands but I have some major successes when I've allowed God to do what needs to be done. Why is it important to do it God's way? Because he's been in the details of it since the beginning, he knows a whole lot more than we do about any given person or situation.
Social Justice may seem like a trend in today's modern church but it isn't a trend in God's perspective. He's been concerned with and talking about social justice since, well, the beginning. Some might wonder why God would allow injustice to happen on any level. That gets into a discussion of free will so I'll leave that for a different time and place. The point is that social justice might be a trend of sorts for us but it never has been for God. It's at the top of his list. He talks about it A LOT and asks us to get involved in it.
But to be involved in social justice beyond writing a check (which is also good) one needs compassion. A compassion that wells up from a broken heart that is broken because God touched it. Ever heard the phrase, "God break my heart for what breaks yours"? That's where compassion that acts comes from. But this compassion can only take us so far, we must also be courageous. We must be willing to enter in to uncomfortable places with uncomfortable people and witness, at times, uncomfortable things. Beth Grant and her husband, actually their family, know what courageous compassion can accomplish and what it takes to live it out. For years they have been running Project Rescue, an organization dedicated to rescuing women and children from human trafficking. Throughout the book Grant gives the background on their own journey into courageous compassion and how we can become a people who practice it as well. Sprinkled throughout are recommendations for those who are interested in beginning a ministry or organization dedicated to fighting whatever social injustice pricks their heart the most. Grant shares some really important information that most Americans wouldn't consider or evaluate due to our independent culture. I really appreciated her thoughts on community, it explains so much that we generally can't figure out.
Grant's book is an important discussion on an issue that is so close to God's heart that it should be a concern of our hearts as well.
Thank you to NetGalley and My Healthy Church for this free copy. In exchange I am providing an honest review.
When it comes to confronting anything, or anyone, I am most interested in doing it God's way rather than my own. I have racked up numerous failures when I take things into my own hands but I have some major successes when I've allowed God to do what needs to be done. Why is it important to do it God's way? Because he's been in the details of it since the beginning, he knows a whole lot more than we do about any given person or situation.
Social Justice may seem like a trend in today's modern church but it isn't a trend in God's perspective. He's been concerned with and talking about social justice since, well, the beginning. Some might wonder why God would allow injustice to happen on any level. That gets into a discussion of free will so I'll leave that for a different time and place. The point is that social justice might be a trend of sorts for us but it never has been for God. It's at the top of his list. He talks about it A LOT and asks us to get involved in it.
But to be involved in social justice beyond writing a check (which is also good) one needs compassion. A compassion that wells up from a broken heart that is broken because God touched it. Ever heard the phrase, "God break my heart for what breaks yours"? That's where compassion that acts comes from. But this compassion can only take us so far, we must also be courageous. We must be willing to enter in to uncomfortable places with uncomfortable people and witness, at times, uncomfortable things. Beth Grant and her husband, actually their family, know what courageous compassion can accomplish and what it takes to live it out. For years they have been running Project Rescue, an organization dedicated to rescuing women and children from human trafficking. Throughout the book Grant gives the background on their own journey into courageous compassion and how we can become a people who practice it as well. Sprinkled throughout are recommendations for those who are interested in beginning a ministry or organization dedicated to fighting whatever social injustice pricks their heart the most. Grant shares some really important information that most Americans wouldn't consider or evaluate due to our independent culture. I really appreciated her thoughts on community, it explains so much that we generally can't figure out.
Grant's book is an important discussion on an issue that is so close to God's heart that it should be a concern of our hearts as well.
May 3, 2015
It is possible to do harm in the name of doing good. This book is a must for those that feel God's compassion for the oppressed before they begin to take action. We do the oppressed a disservice when we don't take the time to educate ourselves to understand what is really needed. We also reduce our own effectiveness when we work as individuals instead of identifying effective ministries that we can come along side of and support. Before going out there and starting something new, we need to take the time to identify whose already doing work in this area and what gaps exist. This type of collectivist approach is very different than are independent oriented Western culture but the problems that exist are significant and nothing short of a collaborative, coordinated approach is going to work.
This book also asks you to challenge your motives and your level of commitment with questions such as "what kind of relationships are you willing to develop with those in great darkness for the sake of fulfilling Christ's mandate" and "are you one who assumes that if you give you have a right to "go and see" where your money is being spent?" You will also be prompted to get outside of the church walls to where the captives are so that they can hear the good news of the gospel. And, perhaps most importantly, this book will settle in your mind any question as to whether the integration of compassion ministries and preaching and teaching of God's words makes a difference in the overall effectiveness of compassion efforts.
This book also asks you to challenge your motives and your level of commitment with questions such as "what kind of relationships are you willing to develop with those in great darkness for the sake of fulfilling Christ's mandate" and "are you one who assumes that if you give you have a right to "go and see" where your money is being spent?" You will also be prompted to get outside of the church walls to where the captives are so that they can hear the good news of the gospel. And, perhaps most importantly, this book will settle in your mind any question as to whether the integration of compassion ministries and preaching and teaching of God's words makes a difference in the overall effectiveness of compassion efforts.
October 8, 2014
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
If you are planning on going into compassion ministry or ministering to young girls rescued from sexual slavery, you need to read this book. Dr. Grant gives valuable insight into the world of compassion ministries and advice that anyone in ministry could apply. She doesn't sugar coat any of the realities that you will see working in the darkest areas of the world. She's very honest, writing about some of the mistakes her and her husband have made early in their ministry and the statistics of the extent of sexual slavery in the wold today. I think anyone that is going into this type of ministry should read this book.
If you are planning on going into compassion ministry or ministering to young girls rescued from sexual slavery, you need to read this book. Dr. Grant gives valuable insight into the world of compassion ministries and advice that anyone in ministry could apply. She doesn't sugar coat any of the realities that you will see working in the darkest areas of the world. She's very honest, writing about some of the mistakes her and her husband have made early in their ministry and the statistics of the extent of sexual slavery in the wold today. I think anyone that is going into this type of ministry should read this book.
May 15, 2016
This book by Beth Grant is an amazing story and challenge to our generation about her families journey of entering in to victimized and trafficked women and children around the world. It not only was a great read but is a great resource if you are presenting information, teaching in a small group, learning or studying personally about compassion/faith in action, or writing an article. I am so grateful for their long labor ing commitment to this calling in their lives toward restoring people to right relationship with God through Christ Jesus.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews