SouthernGospelBlog.com

Maybe this was announced previously and I missed it, but my most recent Homecoming catalog came in today, and one paragraph in an ad caught my attention in a big way:

Fall Festival Celebration Weekend, October 5-6, 2007
Friday, Oct. 5: Concert - 7:00 P.M.
An Alexandria Harvest tradition…gather with us this year at the Alexandria Church of the Nazarene, just minutes from Gaither Family Resources. Join us as we welcome the Homecoming tour’s newest addition, the talented Collingsworth Family.

Gaither has shown his genius once again. I’ve been meaning to review their most recent DVD, A Night to Remember, for several months now, but I keep lending it to friends and it hasn’t come back yet. I’ll let you in on my conclusion, thuogh: It is the most professional video I’ve seen by any Southern Gospel group not in the Gaither orbit. Chances are that Gaither saw it and thought the same thing.

This could explain why the Collingsworth Family is not going to be on the NQC mainstage; they may have needed to keep their weekend free for a Gaither event. (Although, in fresh retrospect, having a Homecoming-caliber group only appear in a showcase is a little odd. Perhaps showcases are easier to back out of if the schedule changes last-minute.)

I wonder if Kim will play piano for the Homecomings on any dates Gordon Mote can’t make. (This would not be the first time Gaither has thought outside the box!)

This couldn’t have happened to a nicer or more talented family, and I am thrilled for them.

All right, I’ll bite. Doug Harrison has a post on the bloggers roundtable with a hilarious punch line:

However, I can neither confirm nor deny that I will be wearing a paper sack. Nor can I comment on reports that we will be meeting in a top-secret super-secure underground bunker beneath Freedom Hall that’s occasionally used by the Vice President when he must go into hiding from the special prosecutor’s office (Freedom Hall, Freedom Fries, They Hate Our Freedom … you see the connection, I trust). Pre-convention intelligence does suggest, though, that should our location be compromised, a flash mob may form demanding to know Daniel Mount’s THIRD favorite Cathedrals line up.

Now we don’t want flash mobs, do we? So I’ll just post it here. It’s Roger Bennett, George Younce, Mark Trammell, Glen Payne, and Kirk Talley, the lineup that brought us “Step into the Water” and “We Shall See Jesus,” arguably the Cathedrals’ most successful songs ever (on radio and the live stage, respectively.) This was the breakout lineup that moved them from the second tier into superstar status.

Now honestly, I’ve been very surprised at all the fuss over this post. At 25 comments so far, it might just be the most popular post in the history of the blog, with the possible exception of the Ernie Haase interview. I honestly wrote it because it was a slow news day and with my commitment to daily posts, I needed something to say. Maybe this post will end the speculation!

Here’s theme number 3.

After reading yesterday’s comments, it appears as though option #2–which I was leaning towards–is incompatible with some versions of Internet Explorer, so we have to scratch that one from the list. Right now it’s between this one and Monday’s theme.

I’d like to open this process up to the readers a little more. The themes for this sort of blog can be found here, and I’m willing to accept suggestions for the themes I put up Thursday and Friday. A few criteria:

• It has to be compatible with Firefox and Internet Explorer, something I don’t really know until I actually try it out
• The text has to be at least 10pt
• No photos as part of the design (load times here)
• No garish colors or designs; I’m looking for a fairly plain, utilitarian design here. (The neon green got to be too much for me.)

If you stop by and find a theme within those categories, I’d be happy to test it for compatibility, and put my two or three favorites from the nominations up for a day or two.