The Contributors who write for CGO have earned high praise.  The internet monk, usually known as iMonk, has included CGO in his list of top blogs of 2007.  Read more

Home Depot rap, starring Brian Long. 

P.S. Brian Long and his family won Home Depot's $25,000 Gift Card Challenge with this video. Congratulations, Brian, and Merry Christmas!

The Contributors of Common Grounds Online will be on Christmas break from December 24 through January 1.

However, if any Contributors feel the impulse to write and post something, they're free to do so.

See everyone back on January 2, 2008.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Good news for Eric Volz. He is now free!

Some of you have serious lives, serving the King and His Kingdom by focusing on doing excellent work, loving your families, and loving your Church and neighbors well.

It's possible that such folks didn't know that colors could be "in" or "out" according to certain avatars of fashion,  those deep souls who need to extract money from your wallet by changing things up.

The currency is fear-- fear of not fitting in, not being with it, of being dated, of being "so last season". This works well in our "next, newest, now" culture (see Faster: The Acceleration of Just About  Everything, by James Gleick).  If you wear last year's color, your lack of sense or disposable income is evident. If you wear a color that became "out" three or more years ago, you're a loser. You're not keeping up with normal, and the designers and clothes manufacturers must have your money.

It's a simple transaction: you give them your money, and they will give you cool.  It's like subscription software; you basically pay for a year to use the software, but if you stop paying you lose access. In the case of the fashion regime, if you pay you get to be cool for a season, and if you cease to pay next season you lose cool. Pay or be a loser.  Read more

Christmas is nearly upon us and hordes of relatives are caravanning down the highways in cars packed with re-gifted sweaters and reindeer headbands. As I consider my own kin, a list of titles and labels stream through my mind. I have the uncle who sends terrible chain emails to the whole family, the cousin that demands Freebird at every family wedding, the cousin who looks like Forest Gump, and his daughter that was born a deep shade of orange. I can literally rattle off an alias for everyone in the family.

As a college student I am pretty quick to divvy out titles to the people around campus as well. Boom-box Guy, Unicycle Girl, The Late Night Runner, David the Sudanese Refugee, Tommy the Homeless guy- I label all of them, compartmentalizing their identities into neat mental boxes. Unicycle Girl is the girl who unicycles to class, end of story. David the Sudanese Refugee is the Sudanese refugee. He also has a name, the end. This system of titles and labels may help me describe these individuals to another person, but ultimately, it robs the individual of their humanity. Unicycle Girl is no longer a real person. She is a cartoon, a caricature with certain qualities grossly inflated and others entirely discarded. My title for her neglects the breadth of her personality and spirit, stripping her of any dignity. Do I know anything about her? No, not at all. Read more

With Christmas Day just around the corner, I find myself borrowing a tactic from Jolly Old Saint Nick.  In my hurried attempts to complete all that the season beckons, I’ve taken his lead and made a list of my own.  In addition, I’ve checked it at least twice.  It shows that I’ve come up more than a little bit short.  Apparently, I am not quite ready to jump into my version of a sleigh in order to deliver an array of dazzling gifts to those I know.  The problem is that the perfect presents seem harder to come by this year.  That priceless CD is already owned and the book which would complete that favorite collection is now out of print.  So I am still on a quest for various trinkets which will fill the space under my family’s Christmas tree this year.  But remembering a little friend’s visit two years previous refocuses my search this advent season....

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Dr. Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research for the Southern Baptist Convention, presented data from a LifeWay Research project and a North American Mission Board research project on the presence of Calvinist beliefs among Southern Baptist pastors.

Hat Tip:  Jared at The Thinklings

According to one source, Nicaraguan media outlets calling for taking matters into their own hands.

The story on CNN.

The story from Good Will Hinton's blog.

Excerpt:Read more