The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.
“I have no idea how to explain this!” I hear those words frequently from our students. At Southeastern, we take over a dozen short-term mission trips a year all over the world. This results in over a hundred of our students every year traveling t...
I recently spoke to several hundred students at a conference on the importance of evangelism. During my time with those students, I asked them all a simple question: Has there ever been a time when you felt like you should tell someone about Jesus...
I recently stumbled across an article at The Gospel Coalition that caught my attention. The article, titled “The Increasing Value of Christian Testimonies”, resonated. In fact, I make similar claims in my Christian missions courses at the seminary...
Sending global missionaries is one of my favorite topics of conversation with pastors and church leaders. Having been an international missionary myself, it always does my heart good when a pastor or church leader starts asking questions about how...
I initially pulled this book list together during the pandemic a few years ago. Back then, all kinds of posts were appearing that recommended book lists for people to consider during our global shut-in. I even wrote one suggesting you use this ...
Eyeballs are fascinating. They take in all of this information around us and translate it into a vision that is meaningful. They give us the information we need to see the road ahead and watch out for hazards. They interpret our surroundings and s...
If you follow Thom Rainer’s blog, you have most likely seen this. If not, get ready to dig in to some important information on local churches in North America. For the last couple of weeks, Rainer’s blog has been dropping the findings from a recen...
For the Christian, the question is not if we will suffer but when. Of course, that statement is contingent upon the kind of lifestyle we choose to live. Perhaps a better way to say that is the Christian who lives as the Bible tells a Christian to...
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Missions is changing. We need to keep up too. Too many of our traditional, American evangelical churches have a static understanding of the Great Commission, especially when it comes to missions. We nee...
Last year about this time, the BBC created an excellent interactive educational tool to help people experience some of the struggles involved in refugee migration to Europe. If you’ve not played with, I would suggest doing so. You can find it here...
Acts 17:16-34 gets a lot of love. In my brief existence, I have heard it used as justification for all kinds of things. Growing up in my extra-conservative church as a young boy, I heard preachers use Paul’s indignation at the culture in Athens as...
I serve as the George Liele Director of the Center for Great Commission Studies and as a professor of Christian Missions at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
I also serve as Assistant Professor of Christian Missions at the seminary. Previously, I served as the Associate Director for the Union Baptist Association in Houston, TX.
My areas of focus cover both North American and International missions. I teach and write on church renewal and replanting as well as developing healthy sending culture in churches. I have a passion for mobilizing the church to the nations, and a love for missions history.
I lead the Peoples Next Door project, which is an initiative to equip local churches in North America to engage in cross-cultural missions among the least-reached peoples that now live in our communities. I’ve been a church planter in West Africa with the IMB and facilitated ethnographic research in Washington, DC with NAMB.
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