PORTLAND, Maine — TPUSA Faith’s “Make Heaven Crowded Tour 2026” came to the Portland Expo Center Friday night, bringing a faith-based, family-friendly Christian gathering to a city where critics had spent weeks trying to cast the event as controversial.
Hosted by Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, the event featured former White House Press Secretary and Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany, Pastor Lucas Miles, and Pastor Travis Johnson, among many others.
The Portland stop was part of TPUSA Faith’s national “Make Heaven Crowded Tour,” a Christian outreach effort focused on worship, testimony, evangelism, and encouraging believers to speak openly about their faith. The tour’s mission centers on reaching young Americans with the gospel while encouraging churches to engage culture rather than retreat from it.
Calvary Chapel Greater Portland, based in Westbrook, played a central role in bringing the event to Maine. The church is led by Pastor Travis Carey, whose personal story has become closely tied to the ministry’s rapid growth and outreach focus.
Carey, a Maine native originally from Bangor, has spoken openly about his troubled past and battle with addiction before becoming a pastor. According to his testimony, he struggled with drug and alcohol abuse as a teenager and became addicted to opiates by the age of 18. His life eventually spiraled into arrests, instability, and hopelessness.
Carey has said that while sitting in a jail cell in 2014, he recommitted his life to Jesus Christ, a moment he describes as the turning point that changed everything.
After his release, Carey entered the Calvary Chapel Bangor residential discipleship program under longtime Pastor Ken Graves. The program focused heavily on Bible study, mentorship, accountability, and rebuilding lives through faith and discipline.
Carey later entered ministry training, eventually becoming an assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel Bangor before being ordained in 2018.
In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid significant cultural and political division across the country, Carey and his family moved south to launch Calvary Chapel Greater Portland in Westbrook.
The church quickly grew by focusing on straightforward Bible teaching, worship, community outreach, addiction recovery support, and discipleship. Carey’s preaching style, direct, personal, and rooted in testimony, has resonated with many younger Christians and families in southern Maine.
Supporters of the church often point to Carey’s personal redemption story as evidence of the ministry’s larger message: that broken lives can be rebuilt through faith in Christ.
That same message was woven throughout Friday night’s event.
Despite expectations that protesters would turn out in force, the opposition largely failed to materialize. Portland Police closed streets around the venue, the National Guard was visible on site, and Portland Police also had snipers positioned on rooftops as part of the security operation. In the end, only three protesters were seen outside the event.
Portland City Councilor Wes Pelletier had been among those critical of the event ahead of time and part of the earlier pushback against TPUSA Faith’s use of the Expo. Pelletier was not seen Friday night at the event or among the protesters.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion worked with Pastor Carey prior to Friday nights event, to help ensure the event ran safely and securely.
Inside the Expo, the tone was not confrontation, but worship and Christian encouragement.
McEnany delivered one of the evening’s most personal messages, speaking about her Christian upbringing, her parents, and the role faith played during her time as President Donald Trump’s White House press secretary.
She described growing up in a Christian home, first attending a Presbyterian church before her family later moved to a Southern Baptist church. McEnany said that foundation became critical when she accepted the role of White House press secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
McEnany recalled receiving the call from Trump and being asked to serve as White House press secretary, a job she described as the honor of her life. She said the president’s message was direct: get it done.
But McEnany also told the Portland crowd that the assignment came with fear, pressure, and uncertainty. She remembered driving to Washington during COVID-19 with her husband because they did not want to fly, wondering how she would handle the role.
She said her father, despite being nervous for her, reminded her that perhaps she was there “for such a time as this.” Weeks later, McEnany said, CNN commentator Van Jones, someone politically opposite from her, sent her a similar message. For McEnany, hearing the same phrase from two very different people reinforced her belief that God had placed her in that role for a purpose.
Before her first White House briefing, McEnany said she prepared not only academically, but spiritually, listening to sermons about “faith over fear,” praying, and leaning on Scripture.
She said she eventually walked into the White House briefing room after getting on her knees and praying alone moments beforehand.
McEnany also addressed the pressures of modern media culture, warning that headlines can distort reality and public criticism can consume people if their identity is rooted in public approval rather than faith.
She pointed to athletes and celebrities increasingly speaking publicly about Christianity and said she believes the country may be approaching a spiritual revival.
Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk, who built the organization into one of the nation’s most influential conservative youth movements. TPUSA originally focused on free markets, constitutional principles, and campus activism before expanding into media, faith outreach, and cultural engagement through TPUSA Faith.
For all the controversy leading up to the event, Friday night did not become the scene of chaos critics had predicted.
Instead, TPUSA Faith’s “Make Heaven Crowded Tour” delivered a peaceful, positive, family-friendly Christian gathering in the heart of Portland, one centered on worship, testimony, redemption, and revival.
