“Friday Night Lights” is hands down my favorite television show ever. I love everything about it: the characters, the story line, the music, the football, (Tami Taylor’s hair), and of course the wonderful and rare values of faith and family that it promotes.
I started watching “FNL” because one of my best friends kept talking about how much she loves it. When I told her I’d added it to my Netflix queue though, she surprised me with a warning: commit to at least three episodes before you give up on it. Hmmm…
But she was right. I started and re-started episode one a dozen times trying to get into the plot enough to remember who was who. The characters seemed like a crowd of typical high school stereotypes: jock, homecoming queen, nerd, bad boy, they were all there. By the time I made it to episode two, I was convinced it was a show for teeny boppers, full of a bunch of cheap drama drama drama with some football added in to draw a male audience. By the end of episode three though, I was head over heels in love. Some of the depth had started to shine through: the star quarterback really was paralyzed, his replacement really wasn’t going to shoot from underdog second string to incredible leader, the love relationships were complexifying in ways both painful and real, and coaches and players were navigating difficult moral muddy waters with actual concern for ethics. And it only got better.
Reading Christine Caine’s latest book Unstoppable: Running the Race You Were Born to Win was a similar experience. The book came highly recommended: Caine has an incredible testimony and is a well-known and well-respected speaker and activist. But as I worked my way through the opening pages, it was clear that it wasn’t going to be an immediate sell. Caine’s message centers on an extended metaphor comparing life and ministry to a relay race. The metaphor is, of course, familiar to any Christian who has read the letters of Paul. It is also one of the most popular comparisons bandied about in Christian self-help books these days, as it can easily fit into our cultural framework of individual empowerment and self-reliance. I was immediately concerned that attempting to milk this particular comparison for the length of an entire book would quickly lead to hackneyed advice or tedious repetition.
But let me assure you, Unstoppable falls into neither trap. Commit to three chapters, and you’ll see what I mean. Sometimes, the effect of taking a metaphor and really scrutinizing it, examining every aspect and nuance, considering it from different angles and applying it in many ways has the actually very wonderful and profound effect of enlightening and inspiring our understanding of the comparison. And this is what Unstoppable does.
I would encourage you before diving in though to do something I wish I’d done from the get-go and which I think will best prime readers to receive Caine’s message. In the opening chapter, Caine describes her experience watching the American Olympic relay team compete at the 4×100 meter relay at the 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 Olympic games. All of these events are available on YouTube, and you should watch them. If you think you already know what a relay race is, if you think you have a good enough general idea of what running around a track, passing a baton from one teammate to the next is, you probably don’t. Not enough to fully appreciate Unstoppable. So watch the videos, and watch closely. Watch especially closely what Caine talks about as the moments of “exchange”—when the baton is handed from one runner to the next. And then turn to page one.
Unstoppable shines for two reasons: the depth to which Caine takes the “race” metaphor and the incorporation of real life stories from Caine’s A21 Campaign, her non-profit organization committed to rescuing victims of human trafficking.
As for the first point, Caine’s central message is that we are all called to ministry. Just like athletes, we each have a unique set of skills and have been placed in unique circumstances at a unique point in time to serve a role that only we can serve. If we think we couldn’t possibly be so valuable, or if we are convinced that we’re not quite ready to get started, we would be wrong. One of my absolute favorite moments is when Caine addresses the litany of reasons why we are qualified and why it matters very little what we think of our own qualifications, as “God will take your little and make it much.” She writes, with delightful humor:
“Are your resources too limited to change the world? Great. His resources are limitless. Do you not have enough to offer him? No problem. God multiplies your not enough into more than enough.
Do you doubt the value of your contribution, wondering what you could possibly do to help in God’s kingdom work? Offer yourself joyfully, knowing that God celebrates your gifts to him and blesses them, no matter how meager.
Are you broken, thinking you are too wounded to be qualified to serve? The miracle is in the breaking. What has been broken, God is able to multiply for his purposes.
Do you feel so used up and worn down that all you have left to offer are your leftovers? Marvelous. God values your leftovers and never wastes one morsel of what you have to offer.
Do you believe you are too insignificant to count in carrying batons that will change the world and have an eternal impact? The uncounted count. God counts on you doing your part.
Are you so ordinary that you have no remarkable gifts or talents for God to use? How wonderful! God uses the ordinary to do his extraordinary.
Congratulations! You’ve passed the test. Your ‘not enough’ becomes more than enough when you take your place in the exchange zone, arm outstretched, ready to receive the next baton God will place in your open palm. You’ve qualified to take your place in the exchange zone.”
What a joyful and liberating truth!
The “race” metaphor also depends heavily on understanding the “exchange zone,” a concept that acknowledges the complex ways in which the ministries of individual Christians are intertwined across time and space. Rather than the way “the race” is sometimes interpreted—as an individualistic pursuit and isolated commitment to living out one’s faith—Caine notes that the relay depends implicitly on recognizing where your work leads into the work of others as well as recognizing when it’s your own turn to bravely reach out (blindly, sometimes, as in actual relay races) and accept a new baton and take off. Her networked understanding of ministry is beautifully biblical and wonderfully in tune to God’s treatment of Christians as (beyond nations or denominations) equal members of His Kingdom.
Caine goes beyond motivating her readers to commit spiritually and intellectually to ministry as well. Having dealt first-hand with the challenges of such a pursuit, she offers practical advice, noting, for example, that “most God dreams take longer than we think to realize, cost more than we ever thought we would have to pay, and are far more painful to birth than we ever imagined.” She addresses all of the common reasons Christians give up or back down (negative circumstances, fear, failure, unmet expectations, relational strife, weariness, opposition, and hopelessness) and makes the wonderful connection between literal relays and the relay of faith with her advice to “Never stand still in the exchange zone.” In other words: quit looking back, just keep up the momentum. As long as we are moving more and more in the direction of becoming like Christ, we can be assured that there’s no reason to let up. And this is the key point: “success” in this relay may not look like any kind of earthly glory. In fact, “many of us will see the extent of the fruit of our lives only from our heavenly grandstand. We will run our race but will not see the finish line this side of eternity.” We are, remember, only a part of God’s work. This is a message deeply counter-cultural and simultaneously deeply biblical, and it is a refreshing one to hear.
As for the second point, all of Caine’s spiritual claims are supported with the inclusion of wonderful and powerful stories of those who have run the race as a part of her A21 ministry. In each case, these individuals struggled with their own “worth,” their own “ability,” and in each case, God used them in ways unexpected and incredible to change the lives of people across the globe. These testimonies are confirmation that the “race” is for real and that God is in it, that the “exchange zones” are all around us if we just watch for them and keep up momentum as we pass through them, and that all Christians with their eyes and hearts open can see glimpses of God’s bigger picture as they take up their baton and run their leg of the race with passion.
One of the most memorable recurring moments from “Friday Night Lights” is when Coach Taylor inspires his team by calling out to them “Clear eyes, full hearts!” To which they respond: “CAN’T LOSE.”
“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”
When spiritualized, this is a powerful message. And it’s the message of Unstoppable as well. We are on the right team, and we are equipped.
So, as Caine prays, her readers will undoubtedly pray as they walk away from this book:
“Oh Lord, sign me up.”
Amber M. Stamper holds a Ph.D. in English (Rhetoric and Composition) and is an Assistant Professor of Language, Literature, and Communication at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. Her research and publications center on religious rhetoric and communication, especially issues of Christian evangelism and the digital church.
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