Winning the Relay of Faith

CHARISMA: What inspired you to write your new book?

CAINE: In the 2000 Olympics I watched the women’s 4×100 meter relay. The American team was the team to beat and should have won the relay. But they had a very soft exchange and the Bahamian and the Jamaican teams took over. Even though the Americans are the fastest team on paper, they ended up losing because they had a weak [baton] exchange.

Then in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece, the American team again should have won the 4×100 meter race. One of the team members slowed down a little and she fumbled the exchange. Their team ended up getting disqualified.

Then it started to dawn on me, I wonder if there is a pattern here. In 2008 at the Beijing Olympics the American team dropped the baton at the exchange and ended up being disqualified again. In the 2012 Olympics is when I said I have to write this book. That year, all of the exchanges went really smoothly in each of the three exchange zones and the American women’s 4×100 team won.

As I was watching that, I just felt in my heart the Holy Spirit say, “Christine, this is what it’s like in My church. A lot of My church is running as if they’re running an individual sprint but they are actually part of a divine relay. We need to, in our generation, learn to carry the baton of faith.

CHARISMA: How does this concept practically apply to the body of Christ?

CAINE: I’ve been serving in full-time ministry for more than 25 years. A couple of seasons ago I started to realize that there was a divine exchange that was happening in the kingdom. It was a real shift of different generations. We are the body of Christ and we are dependent on one another. We need to make sure that we are not hanging on to the baton too long and handing it over too late. We also need to make sure we’re ready for the exchange and that we’ve got our hands out ready to run and receive the baton.

We have this younger generation waiting, saying, “When are you going to pass something over to me?” But you’ve got to be running in the exchange zone so I can give you the baton. Then some others are holding onto the baton and the younger generation is running, saying, “Quick! Hand it over or you’ll disqualify all the work that we’ve done.” We are all dependant on each other.

CHARISMA: How does the church properly and practically carry the baton of faith?

CAINE: What we don’t realize is that every time we don’t dive into the Word, every time we try to diminish the power of God, we are actually saying to a generation that we are dropping the baton of faith. Every time we leave our post, if God has called us to a job, to a marriage or to be light in the darkness in the midst of our public schools, then we are on assignment. We are carrying the baton of faith.

I want to remind the body of Christ again that we are not a product of time; we are a product of eternity. We are given gifts and talents for the purpose of serving. Even in the difficulties in our life the storms of our life, we can’t drop the baton of faith. God will turn everything around that the enemy meant for evil and use it for good. I want to inspire people who have given up hope.

We need to get ourselves like an army, fully immersed in the Word and seeing our normal everyday life as the battlefield for our fight of faith.

CHARISMA: If you could sum up your entire book with one principle what would it be?

CAINE: That the fight of faith is worth fighting for.