The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.
It’s been called a “quiet revival,” or the “revival generation.”1 Perhaps we now have numerical evidence to back up that experience. It appears Next Gen is showing up for church. More than that, they’re now showing up more than their older counte...
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...
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...
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...
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...
This may be hard to believe, but there was a time when most churches did not think the Great Commission applied to them. Two hundred years ago, it was common for people to read this command at the end of the gospels as one already fulfilled. In th...
A sermon preached at Harmony Hills Baptist Church in Lufkin, TX. The text is Matthew 28:18-20.
Today I just wanted to drop you all a link to a nifty little tool I developed this past week. I am working with an educational organization to produce a learning project for students that teaches them to discover and engage people groups. In the p...
The US Census bureau released new data at the end of September, and I thought it would be good to point out a recent article in St. Louis local news about the data. The article is called, “St. Louis Shows Biggest Gain in Foreign-Born Population of...
The title question may have never crossed your mind, but it should. Trust me, there is biblical precedent for it. In Acts 8, the reader is taken on a fascinating journey with Phillip. Phillip was a believer. In fact, he was named as one of the de...
Leaders are like vegetables, the homegrown variety are almost always better. That may sound simplistic, and in a lot of ways it probably is. But this is a point where the Bible is clear. A large part of the church’s mission in fulfilling the Grea...
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.
Get notified about new articles, right in your email inbox. Receive an email no more than once a week with any updates.
