Him We Proclaim

The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.

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Curious, Crystals, or Combative: Navigating the Nones

Few terms have captivated the missional imagination of the church in North America like the Nones. The term None became our shorthand for the nonreligious, or those who would not select any particular relgion on surveys about faith. This was a cha...

Boldness Beyond Sight: Rooting Mission in God's Word

I wonder if you think like I do. When I read through the gospels, I often wonder what it would have been like to walk alongside Jesus in the flesh. Even more, what would it have been like to walk alongside Jesus in his resurrected body? What was i...

Drawing Water from the Well

During my time serving overseas as a missionary, I lived in rural West Africa. Rustic doesn’t quite describe the living conditions. No electricity. No running water. That meant water had to come out of the ground, and it had to do so by hand. I h...

Live as though You Cannot Die

We live in an anxious age. If you don’t believe me, check out this book, or this article, or this article that even discusses a rise in anxiety before the pandemic, or this research. And if you don’t trust any of those sources, here’s Fox News say...

Let's Get Serious about Relationship Evangelism

This article has been a long time coming. If you are a long-time follower of my writing (and I mean long time), you may recall an article I wrote back in 2015 titled, “A Word of Caution Concerning ‘Relationship Evangelism’.” In that article, I wr...

How Not to Use Your Spiritual Gifts

Recently I wrote about spiritual gifts and using your gifts to serve the church. Today, I want to discuss a couple of issues with the whole spiritual gifts conversation. Obviously, I do not mean that spiritual gifts are a problem, but if we are n...

In the News: Old Confronts New In A Gentrifying D.C. Neighborhood

In the Northwest corner of Washington DC, just north of the Capitol Mall by a few blocks sits a historic neighborhood called Shaw. I spent a year living in Shaw. When I saw this article, I knew I had to share it. The author, Sam Gringlas, hits the...

Foggy Numbers that can Sidetrack the Mission

Last week, I wrote a piece about the foggy words we use in church that can sidetrack our mission. Sometimes, we say things that sound real nice, even sound important or profound, but have little real-world meaning. At best, these phrases keep us f...

One Church, Many Gifts (or How Should I Serve My Church?)

  Have you ever taken a spiritual gift inventory? I have, and I assume many who are reading this blog have as well. Spiritual gift inventories, while a bit simplistic and overgeneralizing, can be helpful if you don’t know how you are gifted. Howe...

Foggy Words that can Sidetrack the Mission

In order for us to engage people in outreach we need to do life with them and be intentional about loving on them. You may have actually heard that statement come off some pastor’s lips in a sermon. But think about it, what does it actually m...

Evangelize out of Joy, not Guilt

“How can we say, ‘let the nations be glad,’ if we’re not?” A few weeks ago, one of our other pastors at church made that statement during a sermon. Tony was preaching on Psalm 138. He made a really good point. The Great Commission is not a burde...

Hello, I’m Keelan.

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.

More about me