Him We Proclaim

The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.

Featured

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...

Live as though You Cannot Die

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...

Let's Get Serious about Relationship Evangelism

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...

Off Topic: The Fishbowl Effect

I once owned a goldfish. His name was Cochise. Cochise was the result of an unfortunate series of events that ended with 30-50 small goldfish in my bathtub one evening. My only explanation is that I was a college minister prior to coming to Afric...

Dwelling on the things that are not

Thanksgiving is a peculiar holiday. As with most special days, it seems to be far less about the event we are supposed to remember than the odd traditions that have grown up around it. The pilgrims survived the harsh conditions of settling in the ...

Gifts that differ: What will you be today?

This is the last day of my seminar, and today I wanted to share one final post from the archives before I get back to writing. This one is from 2010, and shares a fundamental shift in my thinking about spiritual gifts. A couple of months ago, I r...

Off Topic: Are Christians closet pyromaniacs?

I like to set things on fire. I blame my father. When I was a little kid, we were always lighting things on fire… and then he taught me how how to make homemade fireworks. But that is another story. I may enjoy the warm glow and soft crackle of ...

On talking to God

In the last year, I have been invited to a whole lot of events. Perhaps in Africa it is good luck to have the goofy looking, white guy at your celebration, or maybe I am unwittingly part of the entertainment. Think of it like having a chimpanzee a...

Off topic: What did you do this summer?

I have a confession. I have become a Facebook stalker. It all started out innocent enough I guess. Occasionally glancing at photo albums from friends trips, until one day, I caught myself purposely seeking out the Info tab of some friends to see i...

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