In this interview, Christine Caine explains why she and her husband Nick relocated to the United States, describing a prophetic call that compelled them to “deconstruct the totem pole” of American Christian celebrity culture. She argues that contemporary American evangelicalism is undergoing a divinely‑ordained shaking that separates true believers from superficial faith, and she sees this as an opportunity for the resurgence of the apostolic, prophetic, and evangelistic (APE) gifts that have been muted by a pastoral‑teaching‑centric model. Caine emphasizes that the authentic church must be “in the world but not of it,” even if that means being counter‑cultural and persecuted. She then shifts to parenting, describing how she deliberately positions her teenage daughters, Catherine (15) and Sophia (11), within healthy, pastor‑kid‑rich church environments so they can see ordinary, thriving faith without needing a dramatic tragedy. She details the personal and financial costs of this strategy, the importance of female role models, and her desire for her daughters to experience radical truth and joy rather than depression or brokenness. Throughout, Caine maintains an enthusiastic, prophetic, and pastoral tone, framing her experiences as part of God’s larger plan for the American church and her family.
Chapters
Why are you in America? You're in America. You moved. Why are you here? Travel!
Yeah, there's two big reasons. Okay. You really want to know?
I absolutely want to know.
Okay, two. One, it was prophetic. God spoke to Nick, and I for a year bucked it. So that was a submission. That is a real sign. Like, you know, there's only been a couple of things in our marriage where he's like, for sure, for sure. And this is one of those. 'cause there was no way I never wanted to come. I would have gone to Europe. Not just because I love Santorini and the Greek islands, but you know, give me heathens. Like I love, the Christian bubble subculture just never did it for me. But the Lord also, before we left, spoke to me and said, "Christine, I said you do this with this what you want." But he said, "I'm gonna take you to the top of the totem pole so that you can deconstruct the totem pole and tell everyone the emperor's not wearing any clothes." This Christian celebrity subculture thing is not real.. And I feel, and 7 years ago when we moved here, I said, I was having dinner with someone, and I said, I'll just say this much, I said, American evangelicalism as we know it is being deconstructed as we sit here. That person laughed at me, and I think it's 7 years later. The shaking and the way things have all happened and what's going on around us now, it is God. The Bible says in Hebrews, only those things that can be shaken will be shaken, so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain. This is the best thing that's ever happened to the American church, as much as people don't like it, but the shaking that's happening, it's separating the sheep and the goats, the the wheat and the tares that have been growing together. God is separating them. So now I'm in my sweet spot. We get to do real Christianity. Like, this is— let's go kick devil butt. And this is like what we were born for. So I'm actually really excited. And so, um, now I feel like I'm really going to come into my own in the American church. 7 years. This is the— July is the 7th year.
July 7th. It's 7.
It's year of completion. And the 8th year was always going to be the significant year. The fact that I'm still here is a miracle of God. The devil has tried to kill me. It Because the Christian culture here was so different for me and for my kind. Because my primary gifts would be evangelistic, prophetic, and apostolic, and then pastoral and teaching. And so the American church has been predominantly based on the pastoral and teaching gift. And so why there hasn't been the explosion— the gifts that explode the church, that grow the church, are the APE gifts: apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic. So when you silence them for a long time, the church, when it's just teachers and pastors. We love everyone and we keep teaching the intellect, but the explosion growth gifts in the book of Acts are the evangelistic, the apostolic, and the prophetic. And that's what you're seeing. It's coming back around in the American church, and you need that for the lost because you've got to be light in darkness and to truly be potent and to be different, to be in the world but not of it. See, the church was not— we were of the world but not in it. We created a separate artificial social construct here called the church, totally separate separated from the world and we just said, "You can't drink, you can't smoke, you can't, can't, can't, can't." But we were gossipers and slanderers and liars and cheaters.
Oh, they said we were praying.
Oh, of course, praying for people. Gossiping. And jealousy and lust and greed and envy. So instead of being in it but not of it, we were of it but not in it. So now God has separated all of that. So really, the authentic church will be in the world but not of it. Now we're going to look like peculiar people. Now we're going to look weird. Now we will really be persecuted for our faith. Because to be a true Christ follower now without Christian culture, oh, that's— we're going to see what's going to happen because we will be ridiculed. Now we will understand what it means that the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing, not a trendy little symbol around our neck. And we're going to know to actually have some absolute standards in a very relative world is going— we're going to look like we're idiots and we're fools. To absolutely be countercultural, the persecution will now start in that sense. So to be ostracized, to be marginalized, but this is what we were born for. In a good way, I'm not like, you know, like Antichrist.
You're not depressed about it?
Not at all! This is what we're here to equip the saints to not be depressed, to have the joy in the midst of it. And unsafe people themselves, they want a message, they want love, radical truth like mine. The people that are in my world that are not Christians do not want me to compromise. They might not agree with me, but they don't want me to become like them.
They're like, "Really, Christine, stay who you are." Just thinking about raising girls and thinking, talking about where the generation is going and just the tough, you know, just you've got to be able to stand. But raising girls, which I think we're raising pretty safe families. I mean, you're on the road, they get to see it, they're part of it. But it's not necessarily their experience. And so just where or what's the prayer or what are your words just for how they get that same strength and that same commitment, you know, or just—
to the Lord, you mean?
To the Lord, and that same just boldness and just not because they haven't been broken or crushed or, you know, just where do you—
it is good, and I mean, you know, I'm very tender to church kids. Because although my story was so dramatic, my kids are like your story. You know, they're born their pastor's kids now. And I don't want them to go through that kind of same thing. Catherine came home to me after Hillsong Conference, the youth conference this year, and she said to me, "Mummy," and I could tell she was really serious. She goes, "Mummy, can God use someone like me?" And I said, "Why, Katie?" She goes, "Because the youth preacher, you know, that was preaching today was telling their story and it was another story like mine." And she goes, "And you've got such a powerful story." And yet my kids have been hearing it since they were born. So can God use somebody like me? And I mean, I was on that like, "Why not?" I just go, "Look, honey." I said, "Yes." And I had a really big conversation. I said, I don't want you to ever have to go through anything. And I said, I wondered the same thing. I said, my story was so dramatic. Mummy encountered Jesus in such a radical way because of what happened to me. And I said, but the same Jesus. I said, whether you— I go, you don't have to need to have gone through what I went through in order to do that, but you're gonna have to find Jesus. And I said, you will be a lot more whole. I said, because it's taken me to this stage of my life in some areas to be as whole as you are now at your age because of what I've gone through. So I said I said, your deal, Katherine, is you're going to have to lay a hold of God, whatever it takes for you to encounter the reality of a tangible encounter with Jesus Christ yourself. I said that, and I go, the road to that is not through brokenness. The road to that is through the Spirit of God. I said, that's not the deal.
But that's a real thing. I mean, I don't know.
I felt that way.
We went to a Christian school, so we were in the 8th grade, and I would listen to the man who got saved by the toilet. You know, he was all I mean, he just talked.
I remember.
Yeah, he was strong. Yeah. And I remember sitting there and I think that's why I got saved like 7 times because I've always felt like, oh well, I gotta rededicate, you know. Okay, well maybe I wasn't saved the first time. I mean, I felt that. Now, I mean, you know, I have my own story now, but I think a lot of people who are raised in the church feel that way. Can God use me if I don't have a tragic life, death, light, dark?
My help, and this is, is that we're part of a local church where a ton of pastors' kids— because my kids are a generation after them— have come through without a crazy life story, involved actively in church, changing the world, and radically going for God. So I— how I'm doing it with my girls is positioning them in those environments. So their role models, even more than me— I'm their mother— but in terms of their faith journey with Jesus, are people who are pastors' kids who didn't go through a crazy road but found such fulfillment through serving in the youth ministry, through being involved in a dynamic church, through being involved with real normal people. But we didn't have to go and go, 'I'm gonna go do drugs and do alcohol and do this so that I can have my own journey.' And I'm watching Catherine, and the best— the biggest gift I've done, we've done for our kids, is made sure we position them in that environment, whatever the cost is to Nick and I. She's 15? Yeah, she's 15 and Sophia's 11, nearly 12.
And so, you said whatever the cost, because there's been a cost.
A major cost for us to rearrange our life, our schedule, our finances, everything to make sure that I position them in that environment, to fly back from wherever I have to, to make sure that they're at youth, to, to do whatever it takes, even taking them last night to Motion, to those kind of environments where I know There's loads of pastor's kids that are 5 or 10 years older than Katherine that have not gone down a certain path, that are loving God, that have got their own faith journey with Jesus. I need my kids at this stage to be seeing it even more than— they don't even quite know what my testimony means other than, you know, not the detail of what would be behind that, but they know mum was really messed up and look what happened. So I need them to have female role models that are not that, that have come through with Jesus, that are flourishing with Jesus. And so that then their story can be like, you know what, that you can come through the end of this. There's so many tragedies with pastors' kids, ministry kids, or kids. You're gonna be like, yes, I'm telling them. No, no, no, but you're not. Here's the point, you're actually not.
I'm just saying it's actually It's funny because I was thinking the other day, I was thinking people want to talk about all this, and they want to ask all these hard questions. So for me, I don't really see it that way, but people kind of— and they will ask— They want to go for the tragedy. They're fishing for the tragedy. So they'll say, so what do you think was hard about being a pastor's kid? And I'm like, it was actually all right. You had integrity. Yeah, there's no dirt. I don't have any dirt for you. The best that I have is that Adam and Eve had the best parent ever and they made their own choice. And everybody makes their own choice. But there's not this terrible— Daddy didn't fail us. He didn't have this double life.
That's what Catherine, she goes, "Mom, why wouldn't you want to be a PK?" I just feel so sorry for everyone that's— I wanted it. I wanted them to grow up and go, "No, no, this is not like some." And I've never done the big, I'm going to separate. You know, family minute. Well, it would be ridiculous because we're on the road together all the time, so it's like, we're going to turn this into a win.
