The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.
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 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...
I’m presently making last-minute travel arrangements to head to Dallas at the end of the week. This year marks my 11th year in a row attending the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. It’s my 13th meeting in total. Yes, I go because of my...
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...
Ministry happens in the medium of culture. In fact, all of life does. Some have compared culture to the air we walk through and breath every day. For this reason, we love talking about “engaging culture.” Some question whether we should concern ou...
“The gospel never fits properly within a culture.” That is a quote by Ed Stetzer from a chapter in The Mission of Today’s Church. In the chapter, Stetzer is detailing the plight of Southern Baptist churches in relation to the North American missi...
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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