"This book is a must read for anyone ministering in a 10/40 Window culture. Bridging the gap of understanding, it informs the Western missionary of a guilt-innocence worldview about how shame-honor worldviews function and how crucial it is to understand this aspect to effectively minister in such contexts. Through a well developed and helpful case study of the Muslim cultural expression of the shame-honor worldview, Muller provides an excellent resource to enable the Western missionary to more effectively understand and reach Muslims for Christ."

M. David Sills, D.Miss., Ph.D.

Professor of Christian Missions & Cultural Anthropology

Director of Great Commission Ministries

The Doctor of Missiology Program

The International Church Planting Program

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 

"Roland Müller’s Honor and Shame gives current and prospective cross-cultural workers an invaluable tool for understanding cultural responses to the gospel. Müller breaks down old paradigms and unlocks key concepts to let readers see the world's response to sin through fear, guilt, and shame. Cross-cultural change agents ought to read this book before ever setting foot on the field."

Stan May, PhD,

Chairman and Professor, Missions Department
Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary

 I do not know of another book that is as helpful for the individual missionary who is seeking to get started in planting a church among an unreached people group. None of the books that we have assigned or recommended to this point for pre-field reading are as thorough (or as challenging and revolutionary) as this book is in explaining the questions related to the task of evangelism and discipleship on the individual missionary level. Many of the other missions books take a macro level approach, explaining the overall strategy of the team, and spend more time than this book does on the church organization and leadership development level. But this book takes an in-depth look at the first stages of the church plant, namely helping contacts become disciples of Christ and members of the church community, and that is where a new missionary is obviously going to start (after language school).

Ken Guenther

Training Coordinator

SEND International

(MMC contains all of "Honor and Shame" plus two other highly acclaimed books by Roland Müller,

all wrapped into one packaged presentation for missionaries.)

Over the years I have written a number of books that have been used by God to bless or encourage missionaries in their ministry. My heart’s desire is to explore some of the very basic fundamental principles that are common to most Muslim church-planting situations. In the course of doing so, the books were distributed around the world.
The original intent of the first editions of this book was to produce a guide or manual for missionaries planting churches among Muslims. Yet it wasn’t long before I began hearing back from missionaries working with other groups, such as Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, and post-modern young people. Requests for seminars came from many places outside of the Middle East such as Europe, East Asia, and North America (including First Nations people). It soon became apparent that many of the principles used for church-planting among Muslims were actually principles applicable to most cross-cultural church-planting situations. Many readers responded positively to the material on the effects of sin on human beings, and the worldviews that result. Many others expressed their appreciation for the materials that addressed the way God works and what God is doing as he moves across cultural barriers to bring people to himself.

Today we find ourselves living in a global community where it is important to understand many different cultural backgrounds and situations. Few missionaries work in a mono-cultural situation. The philosophies of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Post-Moderns, Agnostics, and many others influence those among whom we minister.
It is the aim of this book to explore a variety of very basic and simple principles that should be foundational to our ministry as cross-cultural church-planters. We start with examining ourselves as church-planters. In effect the church-planter is a messenger who bears the Gospel message into a target community. If the Gospel is to be heard, then the church-planter must gain a hearing. If the target community rejects the church planter as a valid messenger, then the ministry will go no farther.

Once the church-planter is accepted as a valid messenger, he must move on and begin to share a message that is culturally appropriate and understandable to his audience. If his message is not understandable, the target community may reject the Gospel, because they fail to identify the message as being a valid message for their situation.
However, even if the messenger gains a hearing and shares a culturally appropriate message, the Gospel may still be rejected if the church being planted is not a viable community of faith for that situation. Thus we will explore three primary areas in this book: The Messenger, the Message, and the Community.

As I mentioned, the original focus of this book was to act as a guide for those working in a Muslim context. Thus, many of the resources, examples, and case studies are taken from a Muslim setting. However this should not distract the reader from learning how God works with people across a variety of cultural backgrounds. Some of the pastors that reviewed this book in manuscript form shared with me that these materials have proven beneficial to them as they led established churches which were seeking to reach out to fast-changing multi-cultural communities. I trust that the principles shared in this book will also be useful to you and your ministry situation.

The questions to the end of each chapter are intended for personal reflection and team discussion. Many people find that working through questions helps them digest and absorb the material better. The questions are also intended to help you apply the material to your specific church-planting ministry situation.

The Messenger
Chapter 1 Gaining an Acceptance
Chapter 2 Your Toolbox
Chapter 3 The Making of an Evangelist
Chapter 4 Teacher-Based Evangelism
Chapter 5 The Art of Teaching
Chapter 6 Parables, Proverbs & Storytelling
Chapter 7 Contextualization and Community
Chapter 8 Honor and Trust
Chapter 9 Friendship Discipling
Chapter 10 The Continuing Struggle

The Message
Chapter 11 Worldview
Chapter 12 The Eden Effect
Chapter 13 Guilt-Based Worldviews
Chapter 14 The Roman Connection
Chapter 15 Fear-Based Worldviews
Chapter 16 Shame-Based Worldviews
Chapter 17 Honor and Shame in the Bible
Chapter 18 A Clash of Worldviews
Chapter 19 Islam and Shame
Chapter 20 Islam and Honor
Chapter 21 The Three Fold Message of Salvation
Chapter 22 The Continuing Story

The Community
Chapter 23 The Importance of Biblical Community
Chapter 24 Biblical Principles of Community
Chapter 25 The Importance of Others
Chapter 26 Steps to Switching Communities I
Chapter 27 Steps to Switching Communities II
Chapter 28 Some Considerations
Chapter 29 Planting Churches I
Chapter 30 Planting Churches II
Chapter 31 Creating Community