Why NCS Exists: A Brief History
It Began With a Commitment to “Show Up.”
In early 1995, Jim Lane, Eric Metaxas, and pastor Mark Browne invited a few friends to meet weekly in the Lane family room in New Canaan, CT. Jim knew men needed a safe place to drop their masks, talk honestly about life, pursue Jesus, and build real friendships—because he needed it himself. After eight of them attended Promise Keepers in May 1995, they committed to keep “showing up” every Friday.
From the start, the gatherings were not a Bible study, prayer group, or accountability meeting. They were designed to be welcoming, grace-filled, fun, excellent, and especially accessible to men who might never attend church. As Jim said years later at the funeral of NCS member and NBC reporter David Bloom, NCS was about “men supporting each other to be better husbands and fathers—men being better men.”
The Foundation Was Prayer.
Long before the first Friday meeting, women from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Darien— including Jim’s mother-in-law—had prayed weekly for 15 years for God to move among the men of New Canaan. When NCS began, those women continued praying, even assigning someone to drive by the Lane home every Friday morning and pray. A group of NCS spouses carried that mantle of prayer for the next decade.
The New Canaan Society Takes Shape.
For nearly nine years, Jim and Susie Lane hosted the Friday gathering that originally called itself the “Men’s Friday Group.” . The small group soon outgrew the Lane family room and filled the living room. After evangelist Luis Palau spoke in 2000, attendance jumped from 40–50 men to over 100. Retreats grew as well—from 45 men in 1999 to 750 in Washington, D.C. in 2008.
As attendance grew, Eric Metaxas emceed with humor, Rev. B.J. Weber served as an unofficial chaplain, and Young Life’s Mac McNally entertained as “Skip Bowlinski.”
In 2001 the group incorporated as the New Canaan Society, receiving 501(c)(3) status in 2002—the same year the credo “Live Pure, Speak Truth, Right Wrong, Follow the King” was adopted.
By 2004, with 200 men meeting weekly, NCS moved out of the Lane home and launched Energy Groups to preserve small-group intimacy. A mission statement followed in 2007—to connect men who seek and value deep and abiding friendship with Jesus and lasting and transparent friendships with each other.
Chapters Begin—Organically.
The first “chapter” formed organically in Orlando in 2003, followed by Winston-Salem and Bergen County. Chapters have always emerged from men who felt “called” to bring the NCS model to their community. In 2009, NCS became a national umbrella organization, simplifying chapter formation (“add water and stir”) and securing a group tax exemption. NCS New Canaan and NCS Manhattan became the first official chapters under this structure.
What Has Never Changed.
Throughout its growth, the NCS culture has remained the same—excellence, humor, authenticity, grace, safety, transparency, fun, and irreverence (not taking ourselves too seriously). NCS has always been non-denominational, apolitical, volunteer-led, self-supported, and open to all men willing to “show up.” No dues. No membership hurdles. Big on Jesus, low on “religion.”
NCS is often described as Young Life for marketplace men—a community where men help each other become the husbands, fathers, leaders, and friends God intended. What starts in NCS inevitably overflows into families, workplaces, and communities.
“With every success I had really ever dreamed of professionally, in a lot of other ways my life… my marriage, my kids, my faith were a mess. I was isolated and alone, and when I looked around, I saw a lot of guys like me.” – Jim Lane
