Six-session handbook released to accompany Smart Compassion

May 31, 2017 | MennoMedia | Books, News, Publishing

News Release 
May 31, 2107

Six-session handbook released to accompany Smart Compassion
Tools for moving beyond random acts of kindness

HARRISONBURG, Va. — A new handbook to complement Wesley Furlong’s book Smart Compassion: How to Stop “Doing Outreach” and Start Making Change has been released this May. The six-session guide includes Scriptures, discussion questions, prayer prompts, diagrams, and practical action points for engaging in a community and helping families and neighborhoods to flourish. The study guide also features QR codes that lead readers to web-based resources such as tools for community mapping and strengths-based assessments.

The study guide will help churches, ministry teams, small groups, and individuals go from “doing outreach” to embodying healing presence, living out radical hospitality, and working toward collective empowerment. Designed to be used along with Furlong’s Smart Compassion (Herald Press, February 2017), the 80-page study guide includes these six sessions:

  1. What Should We Expect?
  2. The Posture of Compassion
  3. The Gift of Attention
  4. Boundary-Shifting Love
  5. Spend Yourself Well
  6. To What End?

Steve Corbett, coauthor of When Helping Hurts, says that Furlong’s work is “built on important and well-recognized principles” and “provides pathways and inspiration to move us to be with and walk with people.” Minister and civil rights activist John M. Perkins says of Smart Compassion: “Don’t read [it] if you want your church to remain safe and comfortable. Read it if you want to fully immerse yourself in God’s plan for mercy, justice, and healing in your neighborhood.”

Both books are available from Herald Press at 800-245-7894 or www.HeraldPress.com. Smart Compassion is available for $15.99 USD ($12.99 USD ebook; $28.99 USD hardcover), and the handbook is $9.99 USD. Discounted rates for bulk orders are available.

Wesley Furlong is the founder and director of City of Refuge, a network for community transformation, and the director of church development for EVANA, an evangelical Anabaptist network of churches across North America.

To schedule an interview with Wesley Furlong, contact LeAnn Hamby at (540) 908-3941 or [email protected].