News Release Canadian Council of Christian Charities
August 24, 2009
Ron and Reynold Mainse, of Crossroads Christian Communications, are reported to have been involved with investment activity that is under investigation by Canadian and American securities commissions. Public reports have raised questions about the integrity of the individuals involved and the Crossroads ministry.
Crossroads is a certified member of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and has been certified by us since 1989 as complying with our Standards of Accountability (cccc.org/standards). To maintain the Seal of Accountability, Crossroads has allowed CCCC to conduct an assessment program that includes on-site verification every three years plus annual reporting requirements to ensure they continue to meet our standards.
Given the nature of the allegations, CCCC has made its own inquiries in June and July 2009 to ensure Crossroads continues to comply with our Standards of Accountability. These include a review of the minutes of Crossroads’ board and its committees since our last in depth review, extensive interviews with the board chair and the current CEO and receiving the report of a forensic audit ordered by the Crossroads board to ensure no ministry funds were involved.
Crossroads board and staff cooperated fully and provided all documentation that was requested. Since the allegations were made about senior staff members, our investigation focused on how and when the board became aware of the issue and the way the board responded.
CCCC is satisfied that the board has fulfilled its responsibility to act in a prudent, proactive and thorough manner to address this issue and safeguard the ministry. They took the matter very seriously when they became aware of it, and have sought and acted upon several different types of professional advice. As it should, the board has exercised independence from management. It has acted in what it believes are the best interests of the ministry, as is their duty. Beyond these general comments, CCCC will not report what the board has done because it is the responsibility of the Crossroads board and management to determine how much of this information to make public.
CCCC believes that donors can continue to support the ministry with the confidence that their gifts are being used as intended.
David Mainse, founder of Crossroads Christian Communications Inc. was honoured in 2008 by the CCCC for integrity. Billy Graham also received the award.
If Canadian Council of Christian Charities is a mirror of its American counter part the Evangelical Council of Churches than it also a big hoax played on the public!
There are some people who have this opinion that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability is an honorable organization. But it is a fact that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability doesn’t exist for the donors but for the Evangelical ministries to give them a so called umbrella of legitimacy. That is why ECFA never discloses the salaries of any Evangelical ministry leader to the donors which is a true test of why they are in the ministry!
See Jeffrey K. Hadden and Charles E. Swann’ book “Prime Time Preachersâ€
BD here: I added the links to the ECFA and the book.
The rest of the comment has been deleted. Off topic. – BD
Do you have any evidence the ECFA is affiliated with the CCCC?
I’m sure many are quite relieved to learn this news.
The trouble is that it might be a little too late to truly recover and return to where Huntley Street
was before this whole thing blew up.
It requires a forgiving nature on the part of the viewer/believer. Given that the viewers/believers
are Christian, that shouldn’t be all that hard.
Let’s hope it will come back to what it once was.
I sent an email to CCCC asking the question but I did read somewher it was based on ECFA!
I would also like to know about whether Mainse are getting paid for doing nothing?
The board of Crossroads has not said if Ron, who is president of Crossroads, and Reynold, who is VP of Missions, have been receiving their salaries from the charity while they have been off-air.
The statement strikes me as trying very hard to reassure its public without actually saying anything.
It is, in any case, less interesting for what it says than what it doesn’t.
As I understand it, the allegation about the Mainses is that they acted as finders for which they received a fee.
The CCCC doesn’t have anything to say about this — their role is to evaluate whether the board acted appropriately and maintained its independence, and once they define themselves a very narrow question, they give a narrow answer.
But we’re not told what I think is the more important question — did Crossroads have rules about what kinds of extra-curricular business its executives could conduct? if they didn’t, should they have?
Walter, there is no such organization as the Evangelical Council of Churches. So, perhaps you might like to get your facts straight before blasting off like that. And no CCCC is not based on EFCA. The non-profit charity I lead is certified by CCCC and has been for many years. I can tell you that they are far more strict than EFCA ever is. The EFCA has a rather different purpose as well as the CCCC, as even a cursory examination of their websites would have shown you.
Buckets is right. To examine the personal finances of the Maines’ is beyond the mandate of CCCC. It is their job to make sure that the organization did not knowingly act inappropriately. And right, too, that Crossroads should have had a conduct code, if they don’t. Ours does. CCCC usually requires this, although recent court rulings (re: Christian Horizons) have compelled them to remove this requirement for this year until the Christian Horizons case has been resolved, as the requirement for compliance to a Christian code of conduct are at the root of the case.
Walter: I don’t see a connection between the ECFA and the CCCC.
Thanks Torontonian.
Thanks Buckets.
Thanks Glenn.
Walter.
Your typo is acknowledged, no reason to attack others.
Your comment I just deleted was a personal attack as well as off topic.
You are receiving another play nice warning – banned from commenting for another two weeks. You are welcome to email me – BD.
I am responding to Walter Kambulow’s question in post #3 above, “Is the Canadian Council of Christian Charities a mirror of its American counter part the Evangelical Council of Churches?â€
There is no affiliation between CCCC and ECFA (which is the organization he meant). CCCC was founded in 1972 and ECFA was founded independently in 1979. Our purpose is to provide educational and other support services to Christian charities, while ECFA’s purpose is to be a self-policing mechanism for the Evangelical ministry sector.
As far as ‘mirroring’ goes, the only commonalities are that we both have a standards program (although not identical) and we are both members of an international group of monitoring agencies (http://www.icfo.de/) and comply with internationally-recognized charity monitoring standards.
We have no cross-linkages with ECFA and we are not a member of ECFA, nor they of us. As part of our own accountability measures, CCCC has asked ECFA to review CCCC to ensure that we adhere to the same standards that we require of our Certified members. You may read their latest report at http://www.cccc.org/docs/ECFA_Review.pdf.
We are a member-based association of 3,000 Christian ministries. About 170 of the ‘parachurch’ ministries (independent Christian agencies) recognize that their welfare depends upon the good reputation of independent ministries in general, so they have created a set of standards that they believe will protect donors and consequently their ministries. The program is administered by CCCC.
The credibility of the standards program rests on the fact that these standards are rigorously enforced and the ‘bad apples’ are either prevented from getting the Seal of Accountability in the first place, or removed if something turns up later. Both ECFA and CCCC remove the Seal of Accountability when necessary.
Ministry Watch at http://www.ministrywatch.com/ gives Donor Alert!
Cash Gifting/ Elite Activity
Ministry Watch has issued a warning: don’t fall prey to the many “gifting” illegal pyramid schemes. Those who participate risk the loss of their money and risk violating the law and being sued.
How come Canadian Council of Christian Charities doesn’t aid and educate donors about Christian ministries like Ministry Watch but rather exists to give validity to certified Christian ministries?
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Thanks for the great resource John, http://www.ministrywatch.com/ is necessary for preventing and at least lowing the risk of fraud by fake Christian Charities in Canada. I also strongly believe if Canadian Council of Christian Charities does educate consumers about fraud and resources such as Ministry Watch they will give more validity to the Christian charities they do promote!