This site is officially over. The new site, Blogbarger.com, is up and running. So please reroute your browsers, update your RSS feeds and change your links if you have me on your blog. Thanks!
In light of last week’s two intense posts - Ultimate Fighting Jesus andConversation with Rob Bell [re: women in ministry], this list is too funny not to share. Here are 10 reasons Why Men Should Not Be Ordained For Ministry. I’m personally very convicted about #5 - I am sorry for being such a stumbling block. 
10. A man’s place is in the army.
9. The pastoral duties of men who have children might distract them from the responsibility of being a parent.
8. The physique of men indicates that they are more suited to such tasks as chopping down trees and wrestling mountain lions. It would be “unnatural” for them to do ministerial tasks.
7. Man was created before woman, obviously as a prototype. Thus, they represent an experiment rather than the crowning achievement of creation.
6. Men are too emotional to be priests or pastors. Their conduct at football and basketball games demonstrates this.
5. Some men are handsome, and this will distract women worshipers.
4. Pastors need to nurture their congregations. But this is not a traditional male role. Throughout history, women have been recognized as not only more skilled than men at nurturing, but also more fervently attracted to it. This makes them the obvious choice for ordination.
3. Men are prone to violence. No really masculine man wants to settle disputes except by fighting about them. Thus they would be poor role models as well as dangerously unstable in positions of leadership.
2. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was betrayed by a man. His lack of faith and ensuing punishment remind us of the subordinated position that all men should take.
1. Men can still be involved in church activities, even without being ordained. They can sweep sidewalks, repair the church roof, and perhaps even lead the song service on Father’s Day. By confining themselves to such traditional male roles, they can still be vitally important in the life of the church.
My friends…. this is a farewell of sorts. This blog is tired, old and dried up. It is not that I am any of those things (well others may disagree :). On the contrary, I have never felt more alive, more in love with life, my family, my friends, music, art, the world around me, Jesus.
You see, this blog began as an experiment in expressing the strong emotions and thoughts I had about life and love and music and art and faith. But over the past several months blogging has not felt like the right medium to express my true heart. I’m not saying my blog is permanently dead, it’s just temporarily ceased to serve it’s purpose. I’m dreaming up other ways of communicating my real self to all of you. This may sound extremely arrogant but the fact is, it’s true. You come to this site because you seek to know me. I do the same with all of you by reading and interacting with your blogs (though I long to do more of it than I have had time to).
So, goodbye for now. Email is still alive (clinebarger@gmail.com) and I post daily on Twitter. One of these days you will find this blog back up and running, but with fresh inspiration.
As U2 closed out their 1989 Lovetown Tour with a series of shows at Point Depot in Dublin, on the third night, December 30, 1989, Bono announced: “We’ve had a lot of fun over the last few months, just getting to know some of the music which we didn’t know so much about — and still don’t know very much about, but it was fun! … this is just the end of something for U2. And that’s why we’re playing these concerts — and we’re throwing a party for ourselves and you. It’s no big deal, it’s just — we have to go away and … and dream it all up again.”
I feel the same way. Until then. I leave you with one more quote from my mentor:
“Dream up the world you want to live in. Dream out loud.” ~ Bono
I’m going into week 2 of this illness and last night I seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. I literally haven’t slept now in days. Anyway, the work is piling up and I’m headed into the doctor this morning. Please pray for me. Thanks.
To the last vestige of my readership… my apologies. Between the emotion of Easter weekend and illness in my family (first with my wife, then with me) all my aspirations for getting my thoughts from gray matter onto virtual paper fell by the wayside. I do have much to share and will do so in the near future. Right now I am just trying to remind my lungs of their obligation to do one simple thing….. keep me alive.
Yesterday was one of the most bizzare and taxing days that I can remember. This morning I woke up with a headache and a stomach ache. I feel nauseous. I sense oppression moving in on me again today. Welcome to Good Friday.
My body and soul are so connected to the event this day represents that perhaps my personal turmoil is really just a response to the utter sorrow of this day. The man is about to die. God himself is getting ready to die. The disciples must have sensed this in some way.
Though I know what happens on Sunday, I still ache for three reasons. First, I am not letting myself get ahead of the story. I want to enter into these next 3 days with all Christians past/present/future. We enter into the story. That’s what we do. It is God’s story. It is our story. Our history. Second, he died. And that was so terribly awful on so many levels that my whole being can hardly take it in. Third, in the sense that I have been crucified with Christ, I share in his fate. And his fate, on this day, was indeed cruel. Sunday is coming. Friday and Saturday come first.
I am going to shamelessly plug two links today.
First and foremost, my very good friend (and one of the finest human beings I know), Josh Bleeker went live with his blog just a couple of days ago. He is a gifted writer and his blog promises to be 10x more creative, profound and interesting than this blog will ever be. So, check it out and link it if you will. Great things are going to come out of CommonGraceKingdom.
Second, Twitter…. you need to join. Like everyone else my age (the generation that doesn’t get 70’s rock but still laughs at M.A.S.H.) I spent a good couple of years groaning over the cultural phenomenon that is social networking. And of course, like everyone else, I eventually joined Facebook. While I still cringe at the stupidity and aesthetically unpleasantness of MySpace and hate the intrusion of all things chattery…. I have fallen in love with Twitter. I’m sure you’ve seen it (I post my Twits directly on my blog). Once you open a free Twitter account you can begin Twittering. The interface is simple and sleek. What is Twitter? It is simply a dialog box that allows you to update your current status in 140 words or less (similar to Facebook’s status section only better). Then you can also follow others’ Twits and vice versa. It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s fast, and allows for some very fun creativity. Sign up, follow me and then I’ll follow you. It’s a great way to keep in touch - Twitter.
Cheers!
Dear Abby:
“I know this believer who soteriologically is an evangelical, but ecclesiologically he is Orthodox, but his views on practical theology and evangelism are more emergent than anything. Where is his place in this culture?”
I clipped this scene to only include information pertaining to the new U2 album. This is from an interview with Daniel Lanois. How can you not get excited from this?
