Who We Are

Although some of our volunteers have been working in the Cedar Grove community for almost 30 years, Common Ground was incorporated in 2004. Common Ground started as an outreach program of Grace Community United Methodist Church, and Brian Hunter, who was mission’s chairperson at Grace and came to Faith United Methodist Church to see how the two churches could partner. Soon the Kitchen Angels were helping with a community meal and after school tutoring at Faith.

In 2002, a group including Tania Lang and Brian Hunter went to Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco to learn how Grace could implement some of Glide’s outreach ministries. They were inspired and decided to put some of what they heard and learned to work in Cedar Grove. The more they came to the neighborhood and built relationships, they began to fall in love with Cedar Grove.

The property across the street from Faith came up for sale, and at a time in their lives when folks might have been buying vacation homes or lake houses, the group decided to buy what we call the Bright House now, the yellow house next to it and the community garden area. The community meal, after school program, food pantry and clothes closet that had been at Faith moved across the street to the Bright House.

In June 2010, a year after Faith church was closed, the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church donated the 25,000 square foot building to Common Ground. Through the generosity of several local foundations and hours of work by dedicated volunteers, the first phase of the renovations were completed in 2011. Soon, we moved all the Bright House ministries into the larger space, complete with a totally remodeled kitchen. In May of 2021, we completed the remodel of what is known as the “Two Story” which added classrooms and a computer lab.  The “Old Sanctuary” is now a multi-purpose room and is truly multi-purpose.  Everything from the Christmas Market to weddings to the Thursday night chapel service to basketball practice on our half court has been held there. We now enjoy a “campus,” which includes the Bright House 1, Bright House 2, the Bright House 3, our two “JJ Houses,” an Education Building, a renovated greenhouse and more!

Our Thursday night activities continue.  After a chapel service, we have a community meal and open our food market.  Our programs for youth and children continue to expand. We partner with Atkins Elementary to support their staff and students.  We have a Youth Program for 40+ middle and high school aged boys where basketball is the “hook,” but include educational and enrichment activities.  We have a group for middle and high school aged girls as well.  We continue our free summer day camp where children from the community come to spend time learning and creating in a safe, caring environment.  We have a Wednesday afternoon group that gathers for enrichment and fun.  Additionally, we have partnered with Bossier Parish Community College to hold HiSet classes for older teens.

New things are happening all the time! We invite you to drop by one day and see for yourself what God is doing in our Cedar Grove community.