The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.
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...
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...
We live in an anxious age. If you don’t believe me, check out this book, or this article, or this article that even discusses a rise in anxiety before the pandemic, or this research. And if you don’t trust any of those sources, here’s Fox News say...
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...
This past weekend I saw something I have not seen in a while. It was Prayer Hands. As you well know, Prayer Hands are the officially adopted prayer position of the western church. For time and memorial they have been emblazoned upon countless p...
My generation’s children will study this day, and so will their children to follow. Tucked away somewhere beside the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the 2001 attack on New York, the death of Osama Bin Laden will make the history books....
If you are perhaps thinking, “Wait, didn’t he give us the Aha moment from the cow training thing like two days ago?” then you feel the same way I did. This lesson was a double whammy. Right when I thought this little visual demonstration had pro...
I like Aha moments. Aha moments are those little points in time when the proverbial light bulb goes off and some previously known factoid gains new, deeper meaning. What first existed merely as meaningless trivia sprouts and grows into a three di...
Exploding onto the scene with trombones blazing, you gave youth group members everywhere a new way to stick out. If wallet chains and ringer tees with stupid logos were not enough, you added fuel to the “I am weird” fire. Your sound was reminiscen...
Keep in mind, I am an only child. As a child, my birthdays were a big deal. I can remember lamenting the fact that birthdays only came once a year. It and Christmas were the two events that marked my year. My parents (being of the over-generous,...
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.
Get notified about new articles, right in your email inbox. Receive an email no more than once a week with any updates.
