NCS New Canaan

Founding Chapter

Restoring Daughters of the King (Michael Distefano – 10/30/20 – NCS New Canaan)

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Michael Distefano shares how God broke his heart for victims of human trafficking and then took him from sitting outside massage parlors in Texas to starting the first anti-slavery after-care facility in Connecticut as the Regional Director of Amirah Inc.

Distefano explains the dark world of human trafficking in the United States and why Connecticut is one of the darkest spots, with human trafficking occurring in every county in the State (in fact, a book about human trafficking in America used Connecticut as its example: The Berlin Turnpike: A True Story of Human Trafficking in America). He also shares how Amirah extracts women from this gut-wrenching reality, provides care in a long-term residential safe home and restores them as “Daughters of the King”–giving hope to survivors of sexual exploitation.

While we may think of human trafficking as something that happens “over there” in some foreign country, Distefano shines a light on the truth, explaining that an estimated 500,000 women are currently victims of trafficking in the United States.

This recording includes extensive Q&A following Michael’s talk.

For more information about Amirah and how to get involved, visit www.amirahinc.org

Becoming Free To Heal the World (J. Kevin Butcher – 10/16/20 – NCS New England Chapters)

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[The weekend of Oct 16-18, 2020 was meant to be the 2020 NCS New England Retreat, and J. Kevin Butcher was scheduled to be our Spiritual Guide. Our theme was to be Embrace an “F-Word”: Freedom. The COVID pandemic changed all that, but Kevin graciously and generously agreed to speak to a joint meeting of the NCS New England Chapters on what would have been the first day of the 2020 Retreat (the Retreat is rescheduled for November 5-7, 2021 with Kevin).]

Kevin Butcher is like us because he is an NCS brother (a member of NCS Grosse Pointe). He is like us because he is a man. He is like us because he has struggled with the difference between “knowing Jesus” and “knowing ABOUT Jesus” (and we all know that the lyrics of the NCS theme song “Knowing You” by Graham Kendrick says it is about “knowing Jesus”). He is like us because he spent years filling the emptiness in his heart with all the wrong stuff (none of which works). Kevin shares with tremendous NCS vulnerability his “performance” life and where it led him.

But Kevin Butcher is unlike many of us because he finally “got it”. As he says, our lives begin when we realize God loves us. Butcher explains that we can’t live out the commandment in John 13:34 to love others as Jesus loves us if we have not realized Jesus’s love–not “knowing” in our head He loves us but “experiencing” His love. Kevin emphasizes through stories from his own experience how much the world is broken and hurting, how much people are looking for the healing love of Jesus, even if they don’t know it, and how healing the love of Jesus can be when poured out by us.

Butcher runs through a thought-provoking and heart-wrenching list of the types of things men use to fill the emptiness. He shares that these are “signs” and not things to “fix”–they are “signs” that we are still living in bondage, which means we may be “functional” but we are not “free”.

As we begin to get lost in the pain of seeing ourselves on (or all over) that list, Kevin then provides a path to freedom–the freedom necessary to heal a broken and hurting world by truly loving others as Jesus loves us. That path is focused on three key relationships:

  • Our relationship with ourself (hint: we have to stop lying to ourselves about ourselves)
  • Our relationship with God (hint: we have to see God is an Abba father who loves us)
  • Our relationship with others (hint: we need to move toward one another in the body of Christ to bring and receive healing through love).

Kevin Butcher is coming out with a new book to be released April 6, 2021 called “Free”. Click HERE to visit Kevin’s page at Tyndale House Publishers.

There is another song by Graham Kendrick (who wrote the NCS theme “Knowing You”) that perfectly captures John 13:34–it is called “Love Each Other”. Together, these two songs are a wonderful accompaniment to Kevin’s message. Here are the official lyric videos.

The Road from Babylon (David Nammo – 10/2/20 – NCS New Canaan)

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With tremendous vulnerability and humility, David Nammo shares his life journey–the high points, the low points and the miraculous ways God and friends have shown up at just the right time.

From his unique position leading an organization committed to protecting religious liberty, Nammo reflects on the the current spiritual environment in the United States, draws parallels to the Israelite exiles in Babylon, and offers some Biblical insights on how Christians can respond to the times.

Nammo then sets the stage for his journey by sharing his family background. Nammo is of Chaldean descent (it is present day northern Iraq). For those who do not know, the dynasty of the Babylonian kings is called the Chaldean Dynasty, the Biblical language we now call Aramaic was once called Chaldean, and Abraham was Chaldean (his birthplace was Ur of the Chaldees).

David then very transparently tells some of the stories and experiences that have shaped his life and beliefs, from seeing a best friend killed as a small boy to watching God miraculously and instantaneously heal his own child, to visiting a food pantry to feed his family, to receiving calls “out of the blue” to work at the Christian Legal Society at moments when he was praying for God’s next step.

Nammo also explains the critical role that being in a small group with other Christian men has played in his life and in the lives of the other men he has walked alongside. David’s story is a raw story filled with the bumps and valleys and detours of life, but it is also a story of the hope and healing that comes through faith in Jesus and fellowship with others Christians.

Whose Side Are You On?: A “Third Way” To Reconciliation (Roland Warren – 6/26/20 – NCS New Canaan & NCS Bergen County)

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With tremendous honesty, passion and wisdom, Roland Warren presents a “third way” approach to racial reconciliation and healing. Warren shares vulnerably about his first experience of racism and the impact it has had on his life. He also explains how God began to reveal insights about the current cultural climate by pointing him back to lessons learned in his early days at Goldman Sachs.

Starting with Joshua 5:13-14 (see text below) and then looking at the model of Jesus, Warren urges us to put aside the “tribal” sides that divide us over issues and concepts like “systemic racism”, “white privilege” and “black lives matter vs. all lives matter” and consider what it would look like to be “on God’s side” in addressing issues of racism and racial division. Warren reminds us that we are in a spiritual battle, and that the “two sides” are really the divisive side of Satan and the reconciling side of God–that is the real choice we have to make.

Warren shows that God’s way, as modeled by Jesus, is to pursue reconciliation by changing individual hearts–that systemic racial problems will only heal when people’s hearts have been changed to embrace both justice and mercy–whites and blacks committed to fighting injustice and forgiving. Warren boldly asserts that reconciliation will never happen between a guilty person and an angry person, which is why many current narratives and efforts just bring greater division.

During his 22 minute talk and an extended 45 minutes of Q&A, Roland addresses topics such as:

  • Why messages of reconciliation are not being heard because the media needs “volatility” for news.
  • How systemic injustice toward blacks today can be compared to systemic injustice toward Jews at the time of Jesus, and how Jesus addressed the systemic by changing individual hearts.
  • The lessons we can learn from how Jesus perceived and treated victims and victimizers.
  • Drawing on his experience as President of the National Fatherhood Initiative, the need to help build strong black families.
  • Drawing on his experience as current CEO of Care-Net, the tragic reasoning that he believes leads to a disproportionate number of black abortions.
  • That truly “caring” about black lives means caring comprehensively, from “womb to tomb”.
  • How whites and blacks can (and must) move toward reconciliation by getting past positions of anger and guilt.
  • The importance of personal responsibility and forgiveness in pursuing reconciliation.
  • Practical ways whites can come alongside blacks in the pursuit of reconciliation without supporting organizations they believe have a different agenda.
  • How “God’s side” of reconciliation can be expressed in secular terms as the universal desire for “peace”.

Warren’s message and perspective is one most people have probably not heard, but it is one that needs to be heard.

Here is a link to the 2016 article Warren mentions in his talk. https://assets.newcanaansociety.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2020/06/26120849/washingtontimes.com-Black-Lives-Matters-real-agenda.pdf

Joshua 5:13-14 13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped[a] and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?”

The Problem of Pleasure (Ravi Zacharias – 10/8/10 – NCS New Canaan)

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The world-renowned evangelist and apologist Ravi Zacharias went home to be with Jesus at the age of 74 after a battle with cancer.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

It was 2010 and we received an e-mail from an NCS brudder asking if we would be interested in having Ravi Zacharias speak to our Chapter.   Ravi was going to be in the area, had heard about NCS and was willing to speak to us.  Why is that amazing?  At that time, Zacharias spoke 300+ days/year and still turned down 99% of the speaking requests he received. He was used to speaking to thousands/tens of thousands/hundreds of thousands.  We didn’t ask, but he offered to come to our little restaurant in Darien.  It was one of the two largest crowds we ever packed into Ten Twenty Post Restaurant over 11 years (the other was Paul Young shortly after The Shack became a best-seller).

What do we take from this story?  Our loving Father wanted us to hear Ravi’s message in 2010.   We think He may want us to hear it again.  Ravi talked about “displaced priorities”–he shared vulnerably about his own regrets–what he missed as a Dad from a life on the road.  The Covid Crisis has been a reset for many–some families eating dinner together for the first time in years.  Old priorities have been disrupted and re-ordered.  When things “re-open”, we will have a choice–rush back to “displaced priorities” that feel familiar (that is where the world will draw us) or pause to consider “re-ordered” priorities.  

So here it is again–to honor the life of a man who gave to others and who incredibly offered to give very tangibly to our little community almost 10 years ago.

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