I recommend this book to those interested in learning more about contextualization, ministry to Muslims, and understanding the dynamics involved when crossing cultures.

Though overall I commend this book to you, this book frustrated me because the material is not presented in an orderly manner. This volume is a compilation of three of the author’s earlier books. This results in redundancy between the three sections. Some ideas are introduced but not discussed in one part of the book, but are developed later in another context. Having said this, once you finish reading the entire book, the themes begin to mesh and a complete picture of what the author is saying begins to emerge.

As the title suggests, this volume address three major issues concerning cross-cultural church planting: the messenger, his message, and the community the messenger is inviting others to join. The author first discusses how the messenger must be accepted as authentic within the host culture. Second, the message must be understandable to the people in the host culture. And third, the community into which the messenger is inviting the listener must be viable or attractive to this individual. As you can see, the overriding theme is that of contextualization.

I found Mueller’s treatment of worldviews to be most helpful and interesting. Basically, he sees worldviews divided into three different foundational starting points. The West, that is, North America and Europe, generally works off a guilt/innocence continuum. The South—South America and Africa—sees life through a fear/power continuum. In the East, including the 10-40 window, the continuum is between shame and honor. Muller reminds the reader over and over again that these frameworks are to be understood as generally, but not exclusively, descriptive of the worldviews found within each region.

Muller laces this book with illustrations that stem from his many years of work in the Middle East among Arab Muslims. Through his discussions and examples I found tremendous insights not only into Arab culture, but also a growing understanding of how other cultures in the world approach life from a worldview that is built on a foundation entirely different than that which undergirds my own.