New Canaan Society Franklin Podcast

We are living longer than our grandparents. Are you ready for the gift of being older? “Late adulthood” said a recent article in Atlantic Monthly, “is a time when the potential for grandparenting, mentoring, and volunteering peaks. It can be a time when zero-sum goals such as social competition and personal ambition yield to positive-sum pursuits such as building community and nurturing relationships.” Are you ready for it? Sounds ...

If Jesus were to introduce you to a group of His friends, what would Jesus say about you?

Jamie Winship will be with us this Thursday to encourage each of us to listen to God telling us about our identity, about being the person God created YOU to be.

An Uber driver once said to Jamie, “Does God talk to you? Does he say, ‘This is the identity I have for you’? Because if God does that, it would be pretty amazing. If God told us our ...

“In the one year I have been talking with people through Hope4America,” said Jay Frank, “I have personally responded to 395 prayer requests. Of those, 274 people have prayed to receive Christ. It is such a humbling experience.”   Hope4America uses social media ads to help people struggling with fear, anxiety, anger, loneliness, addiction, PTSD, and more. Those who click on an ad are directed to a page where they find hope for the...

May our hearts be broken with the things that break the heart of God. This week some guy -- perhaps even in Middle Tennessee -- booked a flight to Cambodia to have sex with children. And the scam call you received yesterday may have come from a building in Myanmar with 100,000 scammers, who themselves have been trafficked and beaten if they don’t produce. I’ll admit sex tourism is not pleasant to talk about. It’s not on the top of ...

What is the Middle Tennessee New Canaan Society and why does it need newleadership? Mason Rutledge, president of the national organization, will be with us on Thursday.   NCS started as an east-coast group of guys who got together in the family room of Jim Lane’s house in New Canaan, Connecticut, where they could share what was happening in their lives. They began to bond with each other and started other groups in Fairfield, Con...

Ray Mullican is a 62 year-old Franklin boy. You may know him from Brentwood Academy, from Christ Community Church, or from sitting next to him at Puckett’s. His story is not unique, but it is his to share this Thursday.   Loss, grief, anger, rage, shame . . . depression. What happens when God turns out to not be who you thought He was? What happens when you do all the right things so that people will like you and so that God will...

Dan Pitts, owner of True Artist Management, and Paige Pitts, founder of New Hope Academy, will be with us this Thursday.   Dan was a typical white kid who, Wes says, “knew next to nothing about racial injustice until he started working with Toby Mac and DC Talk and learned about the challenges that come with racial prejudice.” At the same time, Paige became deeply convinced that God calls His people to care about justice and righ...

This Thursday Mark Montgomery, Williamson County Director for Fellowship of Christian Athletes, will share his story, including the opportunities he has had to be a coach of coaches.   Mark, a father of four, is from South Mississippi and attended Southern Miss on a football scholarship. Coaches are in a unique situation because athletes look up to them for guidance not just in sports but in other areas of life. Mark will tell us...

Are you doing what God created you to do? Can you identify your spiritual gifting and do you understand God’s purpose for your life?   This Thursday Andy Reese will ask two simple questions that will help you find your spiritual gift. This is not something just for 20-year-olds. Better understanding your spiritual gift later in life can help your gift to mature and strengthen and can be rewarding to you and a blessing to others. ...

Pastor Marvin Young, one of our own, has offered to share part of his fascinating story.  He’s a big, passionate man with big, creative ideas who serves the one true God who, in so many ways, is bigger than we can comprehend.   What is Marvin passionate about? Food (he can talk about pork rinds and Creole seasonings), mentoring kids (he’s starting a youth program in Franklin like the one he started in Ohio that helps young people b...

This Thursday bring some new or good used shoes to NCS breakfast – as many children’s shoes, men’s shoes, women’s shoes as you can donate so we can send them  to the Congo.   And meet Emmanuel Ntibonera who will tell us his story and why he is collecting shoes.   Emmanuel was born in eastern Congo (then called Zaire) near Rwanda. His first seven years were peaceful. Then rebels terrorized his town and his family fled. “As my ba...

Why does God allow me to suffer?   We know that God is all powerful and that he loves us. And yet we suffer.   Gary Witherall can talk about suffering. In 2000 he and his wife, Bonnie, moved to Lebanon, began serving the church there, and learned Arabic. Bonnie worked in a Christian prenatal clinic and fell in love with the women she served. Life became more difficult after September 11, 2001. While Gary and Bonnie wept at the ...

People in Nashville are feeling loneliness, burn-out, depression, and fear at a higher rate than most U.S. cities. We’re a traumatized city.   Eleven years ago Nashville was declared (by The NY Times) to be the “It City.” Since then we’ve attracted amazing restaurants, sports fans, huge companies (think of Oracle’s world headquarters), and bachelorettes in droves.     We’re also a “Christian” city, a religiously divided city, a...

Chances are you know a musician who would like to meet Michael and Celeste Guido.   Michael and Celeste were married in 1986 and have been walking alongside artists and entertainers ever since – encouraging and challenging them in their journeys of faith. The Guido’s passion is to see lives changed by the love of God.   In a video on the PR Ministries website, musicians said Michael was “a bit of a legend,” “a mentor,” “he mode...

“Parkinson’s Disease is a gift,” said Michael J. Fox. “It’s a gift that keeps taking because it’s really opened me up to more compassion.” Another person with Parkinson’s explained, “Stories can connect with people in a way that facts and scientific reports can’t.”   This Thursday you can hear the stories of three people with Parkinson’s, and the founder of Bridges for Parkinson’s.   The three with Parkinson’s are . . .       ...

Andy Andrews is a gifted storyteller and author. His The Traveler’s Gift, The Noticer, and How Do You Kill 11 Million People were all NY Times bestsellers. His The Bottom of the Pool was named by Forbes as “One of the Seven Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read.”    When Andy was 19, both his parents died – his mother from cancer; his father from an auto accident. Andy was homeless and hung out in a library reading more than 200 b...

“Derek Young, a former executive at Dollar General and Cracker Barrel, was hands down the most popular keynoter and executive coach we used when I was working with Tennessee State government,” said Bucky Rosenbaum, one of the brothers on our Franklin NCS leadership team. “An experienced stand-up comedian and solid Christian, Derek would be comfortable talking to a room full of CEOs or to the guys at Puckett’s.” When Bucky tells ...

Palm Sunday -- the beginning of Passion Week when we celebrate Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem – is this coming Sunday. Most of us don’t think about the fact that the roots of Passion Week go all the way back to Genesis. This Thursday Matt Davis will show us the Passion Week through Jewish eyes, linking it to the Old Testament. Matt explains, . . .    “It’s like a two-act play. The Jewish people showed up for the first act...