The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.
Our world is not as it seems. We go through our days, worrying about the present circumstances, one eye on our social feed and the day’s news cycle. Inevitably, there is another political controversy. Someone of notoriety that you’ve vaguely heard...
“Is this the end of the church in America?” You have heard the question. Perhaps you have wondered yourself. I am sure you have read the articles like I have. It seems every few months something in the news cycle (or on the news cycle’s demented ...
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...
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. ...
This is not a new article (it came out in 2013), but Christianity Today engages with some data published by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell. The article is titled, “The Craziest Statistic You’ll Read About North A...
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...
Missions is changing. Our great-grandchildren will read about this moment in church history textbooks, if the Lord does not return first. Global changes are taking place that will forever affect the way churches fulfill the great commission, and ...
President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the 1965 Immigration Act on Liberty Island in New York City. Did you know that America’s population was only 5% foreign-born in 1965? What happened? While there is no single cause for the demographic shif...
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...
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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