Relevant magazine has published an interesting profile of Christian speaker and activist Christine Caine (it can be found in the September/October issue). Caine (@ChristineCaine) is perhaps best known for her work with the The A21 Campaign (@A21) to fight human trafficking around the world. But her ministry work encompasses many other fields as well, notably the raising of women leaders within the church.

But what most caught my attention in the profile is Caine’s interest in improving the Christian church’s engagement with women. It has been common in recent decades to lament the decline in the Christian church’s engagement with men—if you read Christian magazines and journals regularly, you have probably seen more than one article laying out grim statistics about the decline of church attendance among men. That’s certainly a troubling issue, but it’s interesting to see Caine pointing to a similar problem brewing among women as well:

“We as the Church are hemorrhaging a generation of young women,” [Caine] says, “because the Church has been very slow on the uptake of the changing goalposts in the world. So much of the literature that’s written to women in the Church is written to the women who no longer exist. It’s written to June Cleaver, and she doesn’t exist anymore.”

Today, says Caine, more than 70 percent of mothers in North America work. And 53 percent of women are single; 48 percent will never birth biological children. It’s a different day for women….

“A lot of us are talking to an audience that is no longer there. We have this hugely educated generation of young women—more than 80 percent of American women go to college, 70 percent of all postgraduate degrees are women—and we talk as if they don’t exist.”

If you’re interested in following along with Caine’s ministry insights, there’s a weekly devotional penned by Caine that you can read online or subscribe to via email. Throughout the course of a year’s readings, you’ll get a good glimpse of Caine’s vision to encourage and empower “everyday people” in the church to step forward into leadership roles in their communities.

You can also find many video clips of Caine speaking online—she’s an eloquent speaker. Here’s a recent talk about “dark moments” in life:

Read her online devotional, check Youtube for videos of her public addresses, or pick up one of her books—it’s well worth a few moments of your time!