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 it Easy for Your Members to Tell Their Mission Trip Story

“I have no idea how to explain this!” I hear those words frequently from our students. At Southeastern, we take over a dozen short-term mission trips a year all over the world. This results in over a hundred of our students every year traveling t...

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 ...

On idolatry - Part 1

You are a slave of something. So am I, and so is everyone else you know. It’s how we are designed, dare I say, how we were created. For the more skeptical reader, the one who claims complete independence, or the one who thinks my religious bante...

Missions is Not About You - Part 2

This is the continuation of a previous post. If you have not read part 1, I would suggest you do so here. So, if missions is not about you, and it is not ultimately about them, then what is the purpose of missions? Why do we go? Simply put, miss...

Missions is Not About You - Part 1

I wrote the following two posts a few years ago, but I stumbled across them and decided I wanted to share them again. Before you read them, let me say they are a little reductionistic. That is on purpose, so that I can make a point about much that...

Allergic to Authority

While reading a book for one of my classes, I ran across a statement that stuck with me. The book contained a diatribe about things that characterize our modern worldview. In the middle of the rant, the author made that statement that people in ou...

How far is too far?

“How far is too far?” If you have ever worked with a youth group, that question is not new to you. For that matter, if you were ever in a youth group, that question probably crossed your lips, or at least your mind. And that question applies to ...

The Good News of Community: Why do we dislike the church?

  People dislike the church. Not everyone, but enough people for me to write this post. And I am not talking about people who do not claim to be a part of a church. I do not expect people who are not Christians to be satisfied with the church....

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