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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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...

Reflecting on 100 Years of Cooperation

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...

Gospel Saturation Requires Ministry Multiplication

Language matters, but language without substance is just rhetoric. The last two decades in church ministry have seen an impressive shift in the way we speak about the mission of the church. We’ve adopted a language of multiplication. And with thi...

The Art of the Personal Testimony

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...

Seven Missionary Biographies and Why You Should Read One Now

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 ...

Engaging People Groups: Cultural Expertise vs. Cultural Acquisition

I was a missionary in West Africa. By the time I left that continent, I understood (to a decent degree) the culture, worldview, and language of the people I was engaging. I could carry on conversations, share the gospel, even teach Bible studies. ...

Culture is like an iceberg, and that affects your ministry

Culture runs deep. In fact, culture runs deeper than most ever realize. When we think about culture, we typically think about dress and food, dancing and art, language and festivals. To be certain, these are all cultural activities. Culture is no...

A Multiplication Mindset: The Ministry Paradigm Your Church may be Missing

Sometimes, we do not celebrate the most important things. It is like celebrating the kid who got the congeniality award instead of winning the pageant. Don’t get me wrong. We should give Miss Congeniality a pat on the back, but winning the congen...

Chiming in: "A church is not a random sampling of the place it is in"

Today I wanted to chime in on another good post by Justin Long. As an aside, if you are interested in missions and church planting, you need to follow Justin. You can find his blog here, and his Twitter account here. Justin recently posted a sh...

A Mile in Their Shoes: Peoples Next Door team leader in a local church

[caption id=”attachment_1085” align=”alignright” width=”341”] Marie helps mobilize others inside her church to discover and engage people groups.[/caption] The next interview in our series is a team leader for people group engagement in a local c...

Here's a fun way to understand people group communities

I talk a lot about people group communities or people group pockets forming in cities here in the US. In short, as migration continues around the US, many of these people groups moving to here will find a way to locate in the same areas. They form...

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