Christine Caine can trace one of her biggest revelations about faith back to the 2000 Summer Olympics. Watching the U.S. women’s 4×100 relay team, she noticed how a single mistake in the exchange zone — a fumbled baton — cost them the gold. Four years later, another botched handoff got them disqualified.
It struck her as more than a sports failure. It was a spiritual one, too.
“It didn’t matter how fast each individual runner was running,” she says. “And it didn’t even matter that you were winning the race.”
To Caine, it became a metaphor for the Church — a reminder that Christianity isn’t about speed or spotlight but about faithfulness in the handoff. The image became the foundation of her book Unstoppable, which urges believers to see the Christian life not as a solo sprint but as a relay.
“We’re part of an interdependent, eternal relay,” she says. “We’re surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses in heaven. Tag, we’re it.”
Caine’s run has taken her across continents as a preacher, author and founder of the anti-trafficking organization A21. Yet she’s quick to say her mission isn’t about influence. What matters, she explains, is carrying the baton well — and knowing when to pass it on. Her focus isn’t on how big a ministry she can build but on helping others carry the same faith forward.
She believes that message pushes against one of the biggest misconceptions in modern Christianity: that serving God has to look impressive. Many, she says, confuse public visibility with spiritual significance.
“We have a big misunderstanding of what serving the Lord is,” she says. “Because of social media and this grandiose view of what serving God looks like, we think if something doesn’t appear to be great and grand and huge and heroic, it must not matter to God.”
That’s not how she sees it. Caine insists that following God faithfully often looks ordinary — showing up, doing the work, staying obedient even when it’s not glamorous. Her own calling, she says, feels just as routine as anyone else’s.
“I don’t wake up in the morning thinking, ‘Wow, I’m doing something big and grand,’” she says. “I’m just trying to run in my lane, like everybody else.”
Her definition of success is simple: be faithful where you are. Whether it’s a stage, a classroom or a desk, she believes every setting can become sacred when it’s offered to God. That kind of obedience, she adds, opens doors over time.
“As we’re faithful with what’s in our hand,” she says, “God gives us what’s in our heart.”
It’s a mindset that strips away the pressure to be extraordinary.
“We don’t all need to be heroes. Jesus is the Hero,” she says. “He’s not looking for heroes; He’s looking for co-laborers.”
That idea reframes ambition. For Caine, the Christian life isn’t about being the star of the story but about serving alongside others in God’s.
“Most people want to be co-stars, not co-laborers,” she says. “But if you actually understood what it was to be a co-laborer, you could labor wherever you are.”
Her own calling, despite its visibility, isn’t exempt from struggle. Caine describes the toll of leadership as both privilege and pressure. The larger the platform, she says, the greater the responsibility.
“You want to be on the front lines like we are? That means we’re also a bigger target,” she says. “I’ve got a bigger target on my forehead because we’re taking ground from the enemy.”
Still, she runs — sometimes tired, but never out.
“Like the apostle Paul, I just die daily,” she says. “And man, it would be easier to go home than to keep running. But I’ve got to run. I’ve got to finish.”
That sense of endurance, she says, isn’t just for pastors or leaders. It’s for everyone who wakes up and decides to keep going.
Passing the baton well, to her, starts with paying attention — with seeing people, moments and opportunities as divine appointments.
“It translates into your everyday life,” she says. “It’s valuing every interaction you have, asking God to give you eyes to see what you’re supposed to be doing.”
That’s why she pushes believers to rethink what mission looks like. For Caine, it’s not something you sign up for once a year — it’s something you live every day.
“We send everybody on mission trips,” she says. “But we should be living missional lives — which means every day, wherever I am, whether I’m a student or in the workforce, that’s the field God has called me to. I’m to labor in that field.”
In a world obsessed with being seen, she reminds Christians that the unseen things might be the ones that matter most.
“Wherever it all starts is wherever you are,” she says. “It’s waking up and realizing, ‘I’m on divine, eternal assignment.’ From very early on, when I just got saved, I realized every day was a gift. Every moment was a gift. I wanted it to have eternal significance. I didn’t just want temporal enjoyment out of every moment.”
Christine Caine still runs hard. But these days, she’s less focused on crossing her own finish line — and more determined to make sure no one drops the baton.
Because, as she puts it, “In Christianity, nobody wins until everybody crosses the line.”