David Mainse (1936—2017)
Country of Origin
-
Canada
Countries/Regions of Ministry
- Canada
Traditions
- Pentecostal
Ministries
- pastor
- evangelist
In 1962, Pembroke, Ontario, had just gotten its first television station. This sparked an idea in the mind of a local 25-year-old Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada pastor, who booked services for his brothers-in-law, a quartet. What if they could sing for just fifteen minutes after the late news on a Saturday night? David Mainse approached the owner, made his pitch, and received the gruff confirmation: “Okay, David—but no preaching! All you can do is introduce the music.”
That is precisely what happened on June 2. The cost was $55, slightly more than twice the pastor’s weekly salary. By the following Wednesday, the owner called back in a friendlier mood to say, “I’ve had more letters and phone calls about your program than in the six months we’ve been on the air. Anytime you have good music like that, you can come back.”
David Mainse smiled as he replied, “I’ll be back this week!”
This inaugurated Mainse's career in mass media. He began a modest program called “Crossroads" that featured music, sometimes by his soloist wife, Norma Jean. Instead of preaching, it utilized interviews to engage viewers in a low-key, comfortable experience. His trademark question for guests became, “So how has God worked in your life?”
More stations picked up the show and viewership increased, until in 1971 Mainse resigned his pastorate to go into television production full time. What better way to span the vastness of the world’s second-largest country, especially when the temperature huddled well below zero? Mainse’s warm smile and handsome face became a mainstay across markets, and he created a new studio space in downtown Toronto. Its address became the name for the daily hour-long show, “100 Huntley Street.” All of this required sizable fundraising, of course, which made him nervous. But viewership paid the bills.
In the early 1980s, Mainse and his team convinced the government’s broadcast regulator to let religious groups own and operate their own stations and channels—something that had not been allowed for half a century. The guest list for “100 Huntley Street” over the years reads like a who’s-who of Christendom: street preacher Nicky Cruz, Canadian pioneer missionary to India Mark Buntain, Joni Eareckson Tada, singer Jeremy Camp, the Toronto Blue Jays’ Cy Young Award-winning pitcher R. A. Dickey, evangelist Billy Graham, and various Catholic Charismatic priests. Just as important in Mainse’s mind, however, was the phonebank of counselors where real-time dialogue and prayer took place during the show.
They still do to this day, with 30,000 calls received each month. "Crossroads" remains Canada’s longest-running daily show on television, pulling in 1.3 million viewers a week and third only to "Hockey Night in Canada” and the Canadian Football League. Headquartered in a 143,000-square-foot complex in Burlington, Ontario, the umbrella entity called Crossroads Christian Communications produces auxiliary shows in nineteen languages including for Canada’s First Nation peoples.
During his lifetime, Mainse’s impact ranged beyond television to initiatives such as the Pavilion of Promise he debuted in the Expo ’86 fair in Vancouver. Its connected theaters drew thousands of visitors daily from June through mid-October to see multimedia presentations of the gospel story. Mainse dealt with opposition from an “interfaith” group that opposed the idea of an exclusively Christian exhibit. The city newspaper opposed Pavilion of Promise’s endorsement of “violence," referring to the Crucifixion scene. But a local counterculture paper called it “visually impressive,” and a Los Angeles paper listed it first on its “big winners” list. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of the province settled the matter by affirming that any one could apply for a pavilion, even opposition groups.
More important than accolades, however, Mainse found that the endeavor brought hundreds of fairgoers to make first-time decisions to follow Christ. Vancouver was colloquially known as one of the least churchgoing cities in North America, but Crossroads had an evangelistic impact and exhibited at several World’s Fairs across the globe. In 2015, the Empowered21 leadership network gave David Mainse a Lifetime Global Impact Award for “significant impact on the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
While civically engaged, Mainse's gracious manner and clean reputation earned him plaudits from two prime ministers of opposing parties: Pierre Trudeau (Liberal) and Brian Mulroney (Progressive Conservative). After Mainse passed away in September 2017 from MDS leukemia, The Globe and Mail (Canada’s newspaper of record) called him a “genial soul.” California pastor/blogger Karl Vaters posted, “I want to be like David Mainse when I grow up…. David was as far removed from the televangelist stereotype as a person could be. Always gentle, modest, and humble—even comically naïve at times—David always seemed like the last person who would want the spotlight. But he found himself in that position because his greatest passion was to worship Jesus and share Christ’s love with others.”