About the Author
Keith E. Coen
Some authors write books. Keith E. Coen has lived one.
His story begins in 1978, inside a steel mill in West Virginia, where a conversation with a coworker named Larry changed everything. That day, Keith surrendered his life to Christ. Within months, a holy fire ignited in his heart. God was calling him to preach.
The call led him and his young family into two cramped Sunday School rooms that served as their first parsonage. The congregation numbered eight people. The weekly salary was twenty-five dollars. But Keith poured himself out completely for those sheep. He visited. He counseled. He preached. He loved them with everything he had.
Then the brick wall appeared.
Keith collapsed in his own sanctuary, found hours later in a fetal position at the altar. Ministerial burnout had claimed another victim. But God was not finished with this shepherd. Through that devastating experience and others that followed, Keith learned the hard lessons that only suffering can teach. Lessons about rest. About boundaries. About the absolute necessity of mentorship and accountability.
His story begins in 1978, inside a steel mill in West Virginia, where a conversation with a coworker named Larry changed everything. That day, Keith surrendered his life to Christ. Within months, a holy fire ignited in his heart. God was calling him to preach.
The call led him and his young family into two cramped Sunday School rooms that served as their first parsonage. The congregation numbered eight people. The weekly salary was twenty-five dollars. But Keith poured himself out completely for those sheep. He visited. He counseled. He preached. He loved them with everything he had.
Then the brick wall appeared.
Keith collapsed in his own sanctuary, found hours later in a fetal position at the altar. Ministerial burnout had claimed another victim. But God was not finished with this shepherd. Through that devastating experience and others that followed, Keith learned the hard lessons that only suffering can teach. Lessons about rest. About boundaries. About the absolute necessity of mentorship and accountability.
For over 46 years, Keith E. Coen has served as an ordained minister, Bible teacher, and mentor to countless church leaders. He has witnessed the beauty of thriving ministries and the heartbreak of those consumed by burnout. Now, at 75 years old, he still teaches weekly, mentors younger ministers, and writes with one burning passion: to help other shepherds avoid the pitfalls that nearly destroyed him.
He does not write as a theologian removed from the trenches. He writes as a fellow traveler who knows the way out because he has walked it himself. His voice carries the warmth of a father in the faith, inviting you to sit down, be honest, and find your way back to the joy of your calling.
He does not write as a theologian removed from the trenches. He writes as a fellow traveler who knows the way out because he has walked it himself. His voice carries the warmth of a father in the faith, inviting you to sit down, be honest, and find your way back to the joy of your calling.