The online home for the writings of Keelan Cook. A website for those who love the church and its mission.
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...
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...
If there was any question about whether or not Jesus’ kingdom ethic is counter-cultural, the Sermon on the Mount should remove those doubts. Jesus is speaking to his disciples about what it means to live as a citizen of a different kingdom. He rep...
Is it just me, or does it seem like church leaders are always trying to get their congregation excited about something? Sometimes it is a new sermon series, or a new initiative. Often, it is a building project or a new ministry the church plans to...
Recently, I wrote about why I think it’s important to confess our sins to fellow believers. In that piece, I only considered one side of that paradigm: that of the confessor. But there is a second piece that is equally important: What is an approp...
This week, I received an email I wanted to share concerning ESL ministries in local churches. The email was in response to an article I wrote a while back entitled Turn Your ESL Ministry into a Church Planting Machine. For their part, a local chur...
The Brookings Institute recently ran an article titled, “These are the groups most likely to stop participating in the US census,” in which they parse out some of the significant consequences of a recent ruling concerning the upcoming 2020 US cens...
“Church planter, you need a vision in order to successfully start your church.” “Pastor, if you want your church to be healthy again, your church needs a fresh vision.” You’ve heard those words. I’ve said those words. For the most part, th...
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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