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 ...

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 ...

Identifying to Send: Examine These Three Areas of a Person’s Life

In our current season of ministry, it would be tempting to remove our focus from the core missionary task of sending laborers into the harvest. It should go without saying, during a time of social distancing the means through which we fulfill the ...

Bust the Peer Bubble in Your Church

I recently wrote about why it is important for believers to be in community with believers of different generations and life stages. The article, because it was for a pastors’ blog, was geared towards how church leaders can facilitate multi-life-s...

Moving Past the Rhetoric of Multiplication

“We need more planters.” I hear it more than in the past. I can remember, only a few years ago, speaking with representatives at some of our national church planting agencies (and even some of the smaller church planting networks) and hearing the...

Christian, Bear the Family Resemblance

Love your enemies. That’s a tall order, but it is exactly what Jesus expects of his followers. In his most famous of sermon’s Jesus lays out a kingdom ethic for his followers. In Matthew 5, he underscores a clear expectation of his disciples: Chr...

Immigration by the Numbers

I like to keep everyone that frequents this website as up-to-date as possible on research pertaining to immigration in the United States. In my estimation, the startling rise of immigration over the last several decades presents one of the most ...

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