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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The End of Church in America?

“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 ...

Next Gen Goes to Church

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...

Curious, Crystals, or Combative: Navigating the Nones

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...

Boldness Beyond Sight: Rooting Mission in God's Word

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...

Drawing Water from the Well

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...

In the news: What you need to know about the Syrian refugee crisis

[caption id=”attachment_1092” align=”aligncenter” width=”4000”] Syrian refugees contained in Budapest[/caption] After my recent post on how you should care about the Syrian refugee crisis, I thought I would point out a few articles as an update. ...

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

The next interview in our series is a team leader for people group engagement in a local church. Marie works in a local church in the Raleigh area, mobilizing others to reach the West African Muslims that live around the church. Marie is not churc...

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...

A word of caution concerning "Relationship Evangelism"

I recently posted a new article that finished this conversation about relationship evangelism. In this article, I raise some concerns about poorly adopting this practice. In the next article, I lay out what I consider a healtheir philosophy of rel...

Chiming in: "The Unreached at Home"

Ashley Scarbrough with e3 Partners has a good write up concerning international people group work here in the US. She wrote the piece back in March, but I just stumbled across it recently. Ashley points out several different ways to find and inte...

A Mile in Their Shoes: People Group Catalyst

[!note] Note: As a means of helping people see the various roles involved in people group discovery and engagement, I plan to periodically interview practitioners. These people will come from a variety of places (state conventions, sending agen...

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