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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Make Your Maps but Hold Them Loosely

Recently, I attended a meeting with some key leaders from a number of global Baptist missions agencies. It was an encouraging week of meetings where we heard reports from many of the agencies. They discussed their strategy, the various locations i...

Go Deep: Moving Beyond the Surface in Evangelism

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...

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...

Five Local Church Benefits from Creating a Global Missions Partnership

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...

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 ...

Embracing the Struggle: How Church Membership Puts the Gospel on Display

The following is a guest post by Trevor King. Trevor is a good friend, and I have always appreciated the way he articulates the importance of church membership, so I wanted him to share it with you all. This is a good read, and may even be convict...

In the News: The Downside of Durham’s Rebirth

Last Friday, I posted a rather tongue-and-cheek article concerning gentrification. The article made light of the rather uniform transitions that are actually happening in neighborhoods that undergo gentrification. It is called revitalization and p...

How to know your neighborhood is gentrifying. (They forgot the Chipotle.)

This morning while I was doing some research, I stumbled across a little piece of tongue-and-cheek blog fodder from the Houstonia titled, The Houstonia Step-By-Step Guide to Gentrification. It’s pretty funny and does a great job tracking the devel...

Church Small Groups Reimagined: How to Find Your First Leaders

I initially planned to post this Friday but that was Good Friday, so you’re getting it today. Ok, let’s recap. The last couple of posts have focused on evangelistic Bible storying as a way to start new small groups at your church through convers...

Church Small Groups Reimagined: Leaders That Make Leaders Through Bible Stories

Monday, I proposed evangelistic Bible storying as a way to start new small groups at your church through conversion. Bible storying provides the benefit of worldview development as the study progresses from week to week. This, of course, is an exc...

Church Small Groups Reimagined: Use Them for Outreach Through Bible Storying

It has been a few weeks since I posted on the benefits of Bible storying, so it seemed high time to do it again. If you cannot tell, I am a firm believer in using a narrative/ story approach in Bible study. I saw the great benefit of unpacking bib...

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