Keith Cook leads On the Go ministries. For over forty years, and in over forty nations, Keith has reached the unsaved through city-wide and local church outreaches. He is passionate about “doing the work of the evangelist” and about coaching the next generation of young evangelists.
Website: https://www.onthego.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Keith Cook leads on the go ministries for over 40 years in an over 40 nations. Keith has reached the unsaved through citywide and local church outreaches. He is passionate about doing the work of the evangelist and about coaching the next generation of young evangelists.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome to the
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:57):
Evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest Keith Cook from “On The Go Ministries.” Thank you for being with me today.
Evangelist Keith Cook (01:08):
Oh, it I’m glad to be here today. And at I’m excited about being with the most excited evangelist I’ve ever been with you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:14):
Well, thank you so much. I am excited about evangelism and you’ve been doing evangelism for so many different years. Tell me how did on the go ministries get started?
Evangelist Keith Cook (01:26):
Well, years ago, the Lord just put it on my heart. I was a young teenager, didn’t know any better, and God just started calling me and I didn’t know what he was saying. And I just felt like God wanted me to go out and tell everybody about Jesus. And I told my pastor and he goes, well, you’re an evangelist. And I said, that’s it. And I’ve been doing that since I was 15. And it’s been a wonderful, wonderful ride with the Lord.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:46):
And your ministry is very creative. You’ve developed many different methods and, and tools for sharing the gospel with people. Tell me some of the different ways that you have shared the gospel over the years of ministry.
Evangelist Keith Cook (02:02):
Well, we’ve tried just about everything. We’ve put together a list of about 200 different creative outreach ideas that we’ve heard from other pastors, other evangelists, other Christian leaders. And what we do is basically go in and talk to pastors and other evangelists and put together projects where they can select what kind of outreach methods they think will work in their area. Because we’ve always found out that it’s easier to get people to do what they think can work, instead of stuff, they don’t think can work, but I can tell you, Sharon, Jesus really works and God will give any Christian. That’s got that desire on their heart. He’ll give them the ability and the insight and the spirit to do it. And the results will be there. So we’re not living in a vacuum anymore. The power of God has not diminished any.
Evangelist Keith Cook (02:48):
And some of the, the neat ways that I like doing it, I like door to door prayer. That’s my favorite tool to work with the church to, to get them going door to door, talking with people or a person to person just saying, Hey, can, can I pray for you about something today? You don’t like today with the ER or the waitress or it’s, you know, just anywhere you happen to be, you can just say, Hey, how you doing? Can I pray for you about something? You know, when you introduce yourself, it’s just fun to do those kind of things. So we teach people how to do stuff. One on one, and of course in mass. And I’m called to be a massive evangelist, but I’m also called as an evangelist based on what the Bible says to also train people how to do the work of the evangelist. So we’ve tried to do that all the years down through the years.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:29):
So let’s imagine that a pastor calls you and, and says, Keith Cook, I heard about your ministry. And I want the people in my congregation to be more excited about sharing their faith. Can you come next Sunday and get them excited? What would you say to the congregation to, to get them excited about sharing their faith with others?
Evangelist Keith Cook (03:52):
Well, we really love to go into a church and, and try to work on their vision. The Bible says without a vision, people perish, and a lot of times churches think they’re doing evangelism and they think they’re doing missions. And really what they’re doing is they’re doing good church, but they’re not doing that final component of church, which is the going out and sharing their faith. And a lot of people are scared about doing that. So we talk with churches about let’s, let’s see what your vision is. And then we take them for that to, to show them some things that they can do in Avi, in evangelism, because there are so many things people can pray for people that we ask people, first of all, to just make a list of people they would like to see, come to know the Lord in a more meaningful way.
Evangelist Keith Cook (04:32):
Well, that’s pretty easy. Just make a list and then get them to begin to pray for them. Pray that they would come to know the Lord prayed for an opportunity to share with them, pray that they would get saved, pray that Lord would bless them, all these different things. They can pray and then begin to pray for themselves to see if they can’t be the answer to their own prayer, which is now, Lord, give me an opportunity to share Christ or share a scripture or share, you know, what, what Jesus means to me. And so we go from that point of just getting them excited about people. They want to see, know the Lord, cuz a lot of people never even think about it because they’re so afraid. You know, they don’t think they know how or, you know, we’ve recognize they’re about four reasons.
Evangelist Keith Cook (05:13):
People don’t share sin. They’re just obedient to God. One is that they’re also, they don’t think they know how and some of them just they’re just disobedient to the Lord. They don’t know how they haven’t been taught. And then some of them are just fearful and the Bible says, God, didn’t give us a spirit of fear. So we would go in basically and talk with the church about their vision. Do they have a vision for the lost and if not, why not? And then talk about how they can begin to pray for people. And then as they begin to pray for people, God will give them divine appointments of, of how they can share. And we’ve got some creative little techniques different gospel booklets, different. We have something we call a go card that has the gospel on it. So if you forget something, you can just look down in point.
Evangelist Keith Cook (05:56):
I got a lot of people. What if I forget this? And what if I get that? I’ll never forget. One time I was sharing with somebody and I got so excited cuz I just knew God said, if you share with them, they’re gonna get saved. And I was so excited that when I got down to the sinner’s prayer, I forgot the sinner’s prayer. And I had sort of fumbled a little bit, but finally, you know, they almost knew what to say, cuz God was speaking to him so hard. They go. So I’m just supposed to ask Jesus to be my savior. Yes, that’s it pray and ask Jesus to be your savior. So we have put a little tool together to help people. They get excited or they forget a scripture or they forget something. So they can just look down and naturally calmly just share without fear.
Evangelist Keith Cook (06:34):
And so it, it’s a pretty fun process to get a church on fire for the Lord and, and to see them get excited about missions and evangelism. We’ve discovered that if someone will go and just pray, the first thing that we do is get people just to pray in their neighborhood. Just walk around, praying, praying for divine intervention, praying for miracles, praying for God, to bless praying for, to hold back the forces of hell. And then we get them to also meet together corporately and pray for stronghold to be broken down. And then from that they get a little courage. So we don’t just take people out and throw ’em to the wolves and say, go, when everybody on this block, that’s what my youth director did to me right after I got called to preach. He just loaded me up in the van, took me down to the, the biggest hell hole in town and said, okay, you can’t come back till you’ve shared with Jesus, shared Jesus with somebody <laugh>.
Evangelist Keith Cook (07:23):
And so, you know, I, I went and tried to witness to somebody and of course I didn’t do any good cuz I didn’t know what to say. And but from that he said, see, you don’t know everything, you’re a teenager, but you don’t know everything. And I need to teach you how to share your faith. And so I was very eager then because I really wanted some, you know, my friends to know Christ, but I didn’t know how to do it. And so he calmly, you know, I’d meet with him once a week and he shared with me how to share my faith. And I didn’t know till I was like in my thirties that I was the only one he ever did that with because everyone, everyone doesn’t have that gift of the evangelist and or has that desire to do that. You know, most people run from this when I was running to it.
Evangelist Keith Cook (08:02):
And so if, if a church calls, we basically take ’em through some steps to where and answer some questions that they have, cuz they know most pastors know that people are scared to witness. They’re scared to, to get outside their comfort zone they’re they want the pastor to do everything. But the pastor can’t do everything we’ve got to as evangelists equip the pastor in the churches, how to do the work or it’s not gonna get done because you and I know that if we filled up a stadium every single night and all of ’em got saved and all of ’em were new folks that had never, you know, heard about Christ, unreached people, we couldn’t, it’d take like 180 years to get everybody alive right now. And we don’t have 180 years, you know, with COVID and stuff and that’s going on, who knows how long we have.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:48):
So we need to activate every believer to be involved in evangelism. Now, just recently, your ministry was doing some outreaches in Nevada, which is wonderful because I believe God is doing something new here in America and it’s time for America to turn to Jesus. So gimme some testimonies. What, what are some of the things that you saw God do in Nevada? Oh
Evangelist Keith Cook (09:11):
Wow. Well we saw number one, like 80% to 90% of the people that stopped to listen to our presentations of the gospel made some kind of life changing decision for Christ and it wasn’t high pressure. It was just basically telling them the truth and is just sharing Jesus. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:30):
I mean, that’s amazing that high, a percentage 80 or 90%, it just shows how much hunger there is for God here in America. And that people are ready to turn to God. If someone will just go and share the gospel with
Evangelist Keith Cook (09:44):
Him. Yeah. it’s so funny. We, we went into one situation where a gentleman just walked in the door, he walked in with his wife and he comes up to me and he says something to me and, and, and I in greeting him, I, I, God just told me to say something about alcoholics anonymous, just just have you ever heard of alcoholics anonymous? And the guy looked at me like, what are you talking about? He goes, I’ve been an alcoholic my whole life and my wife and I, we struggle with alcohol and he goes, and we’ve been asking God to do something about it cuz we don’t feel like we can do it on our own. And we go to the, the AA meetings and all these things and we, we need help. Well, that night he got saved and I, I talked with the pastor <laugh> just last week and he’s still engaged in church and they’re loving it.
Evangelist Keith Cook (10:34):
And they were quite old and, and, and they had been struggling with this, their whole married life and then talking to another pastor and he said, you were not gonna believe this after the festivals were over. And these weren’t humongous festivals, these were just small town, small communities. He says, but we’ve had 35 decisions for Christ just within our little church in the last six days says it worked whatever y’all did it worked. And I said, well it, we all worked together. We all, you know, we had, we had so many things, but we were just really sharing the gospel with people casually, calmly, not scaring ’em into, into heaven. <Laugh>, you know, scaring the hell out of them. We weren’t trying to do that. We were just trying to tell ’em the truth about Jesus. And we talked more about Jesus than we did about hell.
Evangelist Keith Cook (11:20):
We talked more about salvation than we’d get did about their horrible past. And they all knew. I mean, when we asked people, do you, have you ever sent, oh yeah. Are you proud of it? No. Can you think God can do something with you? No. We said, we’re here to tell you, God sent us to tell you that he can. So we saw miracle after miracle. We had one lady stop. She was driving down the road and she, she saw what was going on. She goes, huh. And she ran home and got her kids and brought ’em back and they both got saved. And it was just so amazing people, people, God was just blessing people. You know, we had no, no problems because God was just all over it. It’s so sort of similar to some of the things your ministry’s been doing.
Evangelist Keith Cook (11:58):
I know I’m gonna turn this on you. <Laugh> some of the cool things that you guys are doing in America are have the same component. You go to where the people are and you try to figure out ways to engage the people and tell ’em the truth about Christianity. Tell ’em the truth about Christ because our press agent <laugh> the devil’s press agent has been speaking for the church far too long, and we need to let the holy spirit be our press agent and, and get the word out because when the gospel gets out, when the holy spirit starts moving and our communities signs and wonders, follow them that believe. And when we let God take care of this and God direct us in our steps, it just seems to work. Of course it’s gonna work cuz God’s doing some things, but I believe America because of what’s been going on, people are upset, they’re confused, they’re hurt, they’re scared. And that is a perfect, perfect, perfect situation for revival. And I know your ministry’s trying to, to see a revival all across America. And I believe that you and all see it. If, if, if God will give us time and not take us too soon we’re gonna see it. I think in our lifetime.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:02):
Yeah, just a couple of weeks ago, we were in Burl, Nebraska, just a tiny little place, 1200 people in the whole city, but seven churches got together and invited us to come and, and do a revival there in, in God move. And so small town, not very big crowds compared to what we see overseas, but yet people got saved and the, the pastors were so happy. We have Baptist pastor Methodist, Lutheran assembly of God, church of Christ, just all these different pastors gathering together and say, we need revival in our town. And so I, I think God is doing something amazing here in America. In 2017, we both went to the nation of Belize and we were doing a nationwide outreach there where we did 10 crusade simultaneously in the 10 largest population centers in Belize. And you went to the island of San Pedro, which is, it’s a party island, there’s 300 bars there and they told me three churches. That’s right. And so when they were telling me that and, and, and I said, we need to send an experienced evangelist to San Pedro. And so you got sent to San Pedro. You did a crusade there. Yeah. But that, wasn’t the end of the story. You’ve continued to go back. Tell me what have you seen God do since that time on the island of San Pedro in Balise,
Evangelist Keith Cook (14:24):
Well, there’s been a total transformation because when you had the vision to take the gospel all over Belise number one, they didn’t think you would include them. And nobody wanted to go there and you, you called and said, Hey, please, if you’ve ever thought about going and doing something with us, let’s, let’s do it. And you go there. And so I listened, I submitted, you know, this old guy submitted to you and went to the island and we did a gospel campaign right downtown. It was well attended. They, they loved it, all the churches, all the community, the Christian radio station, the dignitaries, the city leaders were all there, but after it was over we just felt like there’s something else that had to happen. And because usually what happens is the evangelist blows in, blows up and blows out <laugh> and that’s sort of the model.
Evangelist Keith Cook (15:11):
A lot of times overseas is that they, they see you once and then you’re gone and it was a good experience and they had fun, but there there’s it not in a lot of depth. And so they asked us if we would commit to coming back and helping them do some things that were on their heart. And we said, yes, if you will trust us and do evangelism along with those things, because the, the, what usually happens is after you do a great evangelistic campaign like that, well, then you start discipling the folks and then they don’t ever think about evangelism again. Oh, we got some new people. So let’s just run with them for a while. And then 20 years later, they’ll do another festival. Well, God doesn’t want, he wants us to be constantly doing those things. So we’ve done some things there.
Evangelist Keith Cook (15:53):
We were able to do a marriage enrichment week where on the go and the local churches provided a feast for all the couples that would come on the island. And we provided them. It was a high caliber classy event. And hundreds came couples. And we got to tell them the truth about how to live for God as a couple, and how to stay married and how to be faithful to your husband, your spouse, how to treat. And then, you know, folks were getting saved. We’ve done this. Of course, we’ve gone back year in and year out and helped with the children trying to help the children grow and mature. There’s some homeless situations there, destitute situations there, and we’ve tried to help, but the main thing is the churches have started engaging in evangelism and looking big picture. And even, you know, when COVID hit, we were just in the middle of, of taking all the suggestions that the churches had on things they wanted to do and try to help them implement those on the island.
Evangelist Keith Cook (16:54):
And so that’s what we’re starting to go back to do is to help them implement, implement some of the things that they’re wanting to do. And there’s just simple things like, like going house to house and checking on people and praying for people. It seems so simple, you know, in America, we, we can do that pretty freely, pretty easy, but there there’s two systems. There’s one you’re either really rich or really poor, you know, you’re there to party or you’re there trapped and that’s sort of how the people feel on, on the island. And so they want us to help them address those issues. And they’re, they’re really, we’ve done some things right in the middle of the biggest gangs. We’ve gone right into the middle of the gangs and talked with them and tried to engage them. And one on one, we’ve taken street chaplains in to do some things that are a little bit harder, you know, when you’re dealing with opposition and the Island’s getting tougher to, to witness on because of the poverty. It’s, it’s really, you know, when the tourists aren’t there, there’s not a lot there and people are stealing and things. So we’re trying to teach them how to love on their neighbors help their neighbors and, and become affirming of each other. And so just pray for the church and beliefs.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:03):
One of the things that I really love about your ministry is that you identify young evangelists and begin to mentor them and help them in evangelism. And so what is some of the advice that you give to a young person who maybe feels like they’re called to be an evangelist and doesn’t know how to get started?
Evangelist Keith Cook (18:23):
Well, number one is to ask questions and I tell ’em be bold. I said, call any evangelist, any ministry that you’re, that you have any knowledge of and say, what can I do? How can I help? I said, I tell ’em volunteer for everything. Fellowship, life produces life. And I learned from Billy Graham years ago I called and said, I’m an evangelist. And they said, we know that <laugh> they already do about me. And they started inviting me to come and be at little volunteer opportunities. And I learned so much and I became friends with some of them. Then the same thing with Louis pal, I called my friend Louis Palau. And, and his ministry just said, come on, we’re having a conference, come on. And, and from that, I’ve made friendships that have lasted forever. Almost every, every friend active friend that I have right now came through other evangelists.
Evangelist Keith Cook (19:17):
I mean, my friends are evangelists used to in the old days, evangelists were in competition with other evangelists, not so nowadays we all need each other. And so I would say getting fellowship with everybody, but also don’t move away from your local church. The, one of the things that you, you don’t have to start your own big, huge organization. You can be under a church’s umbrella. You can be under another evangelist umbrella. We have a lot of young guys that work under our umbrella until they’re, you know, they feel like they’re, they can five have their own 5 0 1 C three. Yeah. So we just said, just do ministry start, preach everywhere. You can. Every invitation. I’ll never forget. When I was a young guy, I turned down an invitation, cuz I thought it was not quite, you know, gonna be any good. And the phone didn’t ring for like two months, <laugh> nobody called.
Evangelist Keith Cook (20:07):
And I was praying one day and I said, God, what’s wrong with these crazy pastors? Why aren’t they calling me and crossed my mind? The Lord, let me see me hanging that phone up saying who do they think they are asking me to come do that? And I’ve only got five minutes to speak and you know, I can’t, it’s like, yeah, you got in the flesh and I’m not gonna bless you if you stay in the flesh. So preach all you can and, and really connect with an evangelist because every evangelist I know right now, that’s doing anything for God needs help. And they need young people and they need young people that are teachable and who are willing to work. And I guarantee you, if you connect with an evangelist, that’s doing real evangelism, that they will provide you opportunities to help and be a part and you’ll do more and see more than you could ever dream.
Evangelist Keith Cook (20:57):
And the sky is the limit with the Lord. He will, he will do things. I tell you what our interns and our associate evangelist get to do far more than me. The other day, my wife and I were praying. And I started crying because I can remember when, when my son was getting ready to be born, the Lord told me that my children would do greater things than I ever thought of doing. And we were praying and I jumped up and I said, I just had a vision of all the young men and young women that have come through these doors and only have one son. And he’s doing great things, but it’s got, I said, Joan, we’ve got hundreds of children. <Laugh> all over the world. And they’re out doing all these things and it is such a blessing. And it’s a blessing to the kingdom of God when when you can, you know, just the other day, someone from Nevada that was part of our outreach. The last two years said, I feel I’m called to be an evangelist. What can I do? And I said, well, go back to your pastor, tell your pastor, do all you can do preach all you can preach, but we’d love to have you be a part of our team until you’re ready to start your own organization. And so submit to some other person submit your pastor or some other evangelist and learn how to do the work. The evangelist, cuz it is work. Yeah, it is work.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:15):
So if someone’s listening and they wanna find out more about you, maybe get connected to you, maybe even support your ministry. What’s your website. How can they find out more about you?
Evangelist Keith Cook (22:25):
You can go to www.onthego.org. And we would love to, to talk with you. And of course they can also go to your website and you’re doing some great mighty things, training people. And we would just, we love going down the road with you and your wife and your team. Some of the best things. I mean we met in Malawi. We did a mission together and then you invited me to be a part of police. And now we’re together on some committees that are doing evangelism around the world. And it’s just been such a blessing to meet you and to see what God’s doing and the best is yet to come.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:59):
Amen. Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast.
Evangelist Keith Cook (23:02):
I’ve enjoyed it so much. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:04):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the evangelism podcast on apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with king ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Speaker 2 (24:24):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again that’s king ministries.com.
