How did the Honor-Shame Network come about?
In July 2014 the International Orality Network, led at the time by Rev. Samuel Chiang, held a consultation at Houston Baptist University. The consultation theme was: “Beyond Literate Western Contexts: Honor & Shame and Assessment of Orality Preference.”
In prior years, Rev. Chiang had been introduced to some of the key practitioners and writers in the honor-shame community, and he became convinced it was a strategic issue for the global church. ION leadership had been planning a consultation and decided to incorporate the theme of honor-shame. So in addition to inviting leaders and practitioners in orality to the Houston consultation, the ION leadership team also invited several from the fledgling evangelical honor-shame community.
Participants in the July 2014 ION consultation from the honor-shame community included Chris Flanders, Jayson Georges, Werner Mischke, and Jackson Wu. Although some of them had corresponded by email and shared ideas online, this was the first time they had met face to face.
ION published a compendium of articles (free book available here) based on the 2014 consultation in Houston—and it included several articles about honor-shame written by conference attendees.
At the ION consultation in Houston, the idea was brought forward to form a network around the issue of honor-shame. The network and conference has been jointly pursued by the initial resource team of Jayson Georges, Jackson Wu, Chris Flanders, and Werner Mischke. Werner serves as coordinator for the conference and webmaster.
Relatedly, the blog and website HonorShame.com (launched in 2013) has become the main website for practitioners seeking resources related to honor-shame in Christian theology and mission. HonorShame.com has become the de facto digital network about honor-shame for practitioners in the evangelical missions community.
By God’s grace—the Honor-Shame Network and Conference has emerged. The resource team is grateful for the encouragement and wise counsel gained from Rev. Chiang—as well as from Eldon Porter of Missio Nexus and Dave Hackett of visionSynergy.
The 2017 Honor-Shame Conference (June 18–20, 2017) gathered 285 people from some 100 organizations at Wheaton College. It was a learning community from North America and around the world—professors and educators, pastors and thought leaders, cross-cultural workers and creatives, professional practitioners and others.
The June 2020 Honor-Shame Conference will build on the efforts and fruit of the 2017 conference.
To God be the glory.
The Honor-Shame Conference is not a function of Wheaton College.
Banner image by Nikolay Guenov. Used by permission. http://travel.china-finds.com
Honor-Shame Conference 