andrew dodson

Last night at the gym, I had something interesting happen to me. Something I’ve never experienced before, so I thought it was blog worthy.

Since it was my first night back at the gym in several weeks, I decided to take it easy. I walked a few minutes on the treadmill to warm up, then jogged for about fifteen minutes. After a cool down on the treadmill, I moved into a little bit of circuit training. I alternated sets of sit-ups with different machines - incline bench press, butterfly machine, bicep curls, etc. I got my heart rate up pretty good, so after about thirty minutes of working out, I decided that would be enough for my first night back. My roommate was still working out, so I decided to just sit down and wait for him to get finished.

After a few minutes, I stood up to go read the day’s paper at the front desk. All of the sudden, I must’ve had a pretty severe head rush. I felt like I had tunnel vision. Everything started getting dark, and the sound from the gym’s radio slowly started to fade out. I knew I needed to make it to a machine to sit down. I made it to a machine, but I decided laying down would be better. I got up and walked over to the area with all of the sit-up machines. At that point, something as simple as walking took an extreme amount of focus. After laying down for a few minutes, I was fine.  I knew this when the sound from the radio slowly came back to my hearing.

It was pretty interesting. I’ve never passed out before, but I had to have been on the verge of passing out. I know my workout triggered it, but the odd thing was I really didn’t work out all that hard. I didn’t “over do it” or push myself too much. As evidence, I’m not even sore today. I’m supposed to go back tonight, so hopefully I won’t have a repeat occurrence.

Here we are, on the 14th day of 2008.  For the sake of accountability, I thought I’d post how I’m doing on my resolutions so far.

• Get to bed earlier and wake up earlier.  I’m pleased to say this is happening!  My ultimate goal is in bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 6 a.m.  This is a complete change for a guy that since college, has been used to going to bed around midnight or 1 a.m. (later on the weekends).  My body is still getting used to this plan.  Consistently, I’ve been asleep by around 11 and I wake up around 6:30.  It’s progress, though.
• Get to the gym 3-4 times per week.  This is supposed to start this week.  My roommate and I are supposed to head to the gym tonight at 6 p.m.
• Read one book per month (I made this resolution last year and failed).  Success!  So far.  I’ve completed The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel.  Last night, I started reading The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges.  It’s a short book, so I’m on a plan to read it by next weekend.  Two books in one month and I’ll still have a week or so left!  I really do enjoy reading, but to this point, haven’t disciplined myself to read on a daily basis.  It’s been enjoyable to read every day (and watch less TV!) for a change.
• Manage money better!  Can we truly say we every master this?  But, so far, I’ve only spent money on necessary things (bills, food, gas).
• Read through the Bible entirely (hopefully a yearly goal from here on out).  I’ve read through the first 27 chapters of Genesis, the first 14 Psalms, and the first 17 chapters of Matthew.  It really is interesting that in about 20 minutes per day, you can read through the entire Bible in a year (and I’m a slow reader!).
• Blog five to seven times per week.  I think I came one post short last week, but I’ve definitely blogged more than usual lately.
• Improve my prayer life.  Another skill that I’m not sure we can say we’ve truly mastered.  Fortunately, I’m not trying to master it - just do better!

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One of my favorite hymns, and maybe my favorite hymn is “Before the Throne of God.” The past few days, I’ve been enjoying Shane & Shane’s version. Here’s the lyrics:

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.

Because a sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,
Risen Son of God!

Behold him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace!

One in himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by his blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God

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While reading through Matthew this week, two parts of the 13th chapter jumped out at me. The following are both parts, in summary.

Reactions to the Gospel

In the parable of the sower, we see the various reactions of people when they hear the gospel. This is my humble attempt to provide a contemporary commentary on the parable.

Reaction #1: No Reaction

The seed that falls along the path is the person who hears the gospel and does nothing. Jesus says they don’t understand and the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown.

Reaction #2: Saving Faith is Never Established

This is like the person who gets “saved” and maybe baptized. We see them at church in the weeks that follow. They may even join a small group. Eventually, trials inevitably arise and instead of relying on their newly found faith in God, they resist and rely on their own strength. They become frustrated and we never see them at church again. Or, maybe they are ridiculed by friends or family. They hold the opinion of these people in higher regard than their faith, and decide it’s more important for them to save face with those who ridicule them. In both of these cases, it’s safe to say that saving faith never took root in this person.

Reaction #3: The World is More Important

This is the person who’s “life” is more important than becoming saved and allowing God to change their heart. Maybe they enjoy partying. Maybe they enjoy drugs, alcohol or sex. Maybe working 90 hours per week and spending zero time with their family is more important. In short, the cares of the world are more important to this person than letting God change their heart and priorities. They’re reluctant to give up the “good life” of the world for the better life with God.

Reaction #4: Salvation!

In this case, the gospel takes root and the person comes to salvation in Christ. What’s key in this reaction is when Jesus says “He indeed bears fruit,” in verse 23. If we are truly saved, we will bear fruit.

Hell is Real

Another thing that strikes me in this chapter is the number of times Jesus makes reference to the reality of hell. I’ll let the verses speak for themselves:

Matthew 13:30 Listen

30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

Matthew 13:40 Listen

40 Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age.

Matthew 13:42 Listen

42 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 13:49-50 Listen

49 So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

While the reality of hell isn’t surprising to me, it is surprising that we have teachers & pastors that deny its existence. In these verses, it’s quite clear to me that those who believe the gospel will spend an eternity with God, and those who do not believe will spend an eternity in hell. Seems pretty simple to me!

Here’s a quick post that will be a preview of posts I’ll be writing sometime this weekend:

• Thoughts on the 13th Chapter of Matthew
• The Attributes of God: Wrath

Both posts will be related in a sense. The chapter in Matthew is a great chapter that reveals the reality of unbelievers being sent to hell. Any universalists that read this blog will be sure to be offended. I’m currently reading Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ. A portion of the book deals with the question of why a “loving” God would send people to an eternity in hell. Stay tuned!

Sometimes, I’m asked how I record & archive sermons for The Point. I thought it’d be helpful to provide a step-by-step guide about the process. This same process can be applied to recording meetings, lectures, and more.

• Take a feed from the soundboard. Most people record directly from the soundboard’s tape outs. I like to set up a separate, dedicated recording feed. The reason for this is to avoid any other inputs from the soundboard coming through the tape outs into the recording. For example, if a channel has a hum or buzz coming through, and that channel isn’t muted during the sermon, your sermon recording will have the same hum or buzz. So, I take a feed from a direct out on the pastor’s mic channel. I run this into a small Behringer mixer (any mixer will do).
• Set your levels. Make sure you leave plenty of headroom in your recording to prevent clipping. If you have an animated speaker, they might result to yelling at some point. You want to make sure you account for this and set your levels accordingly. Knowing your speaker’s style helps greatly when setting levels.
• Have two sources of recording. Using the separate mixer also gives me the flexibility to record to two sources - a primary and backup. I don’t always use two sources, but as a general rule, it’s a good idea, in case one of your sources fails. Ordinarily, I would come out of the tape outs of my mixer into a computer or laptop. I could then use the main outs of the mixer to run to a portable flash recorder of some kind as a backup. I use an Edirol R-09 that I absolutely love. There are other options available.
• Edit the sermon using software. If you record direct to a computer, you can edit the sermon with the same software you use to record the sermon. I’m a big fan of Tracktion for all of my recording needs. If you’re on a budget, I suggest using Audacity (it’s free!). In the editing process, I usually clip the front and back ends of the sermon and apply fade ins and fade outs (after all, who wants to listen to dead space?). Next, I apply EQ, a bit of vocal compression, and I boost the levels to a good volume.
• Export as MP3. If you plan on posting the sermon to a website, most recording software will have the ability to export the file as an MP3. You can also adjust the bit rate settings of the MP3 to make it web-friendly. I like to use a “variable rate” MP3 setting, and try to keep the file between 20 and 30 MB. You can make the files smaller, but keep in mind that it will start to affect the sound quality of the MP3 (you’ll get the “warbly” sound).
• Use simple file names. Another web-friendly idea is to use simple file names for your MP3s. Titling them “No Ordinary Man - The Comedy of Jesus.mp3″ might not be the best idea. I use a system that employs the date. For a sermon, I use “sermonYYYY-MM-DD.mp3″ or “sermon2007-09-06.mp3.” For our Hebrews bible study, I’ve been using “hebrewsYYYY-MM-DD.mp3.” This also helps making links to the MP3 on your website much easier. Instead of trying to remember a complicated name, you can use whatever system for naming files that you come up with.
• Tag your MP3. ID3 tags include information about MP3 files. They can tell you the artist name, title of the song, and more when you play them in an MP3 player. iTunes makes this easy, but the downside of iTunes is that it will change the file name to whatever “song title” you give the MP3. Instead, I like to use ID3 Editor, which doesn’t change the file name.
• Upload the MP3. Using FTP is generally the best solution to upload files to the web. I use a free plugin for Firefox called FireFTP. There are plenty of other options available. I try to store all of The Point’s sermons on our media site. So far, we’ve yet to reach our hosting package’s limit for storage. You may be limited to your hosting package as to how many sermons you can have posted. I would recommend posting the last month’s worth of sermons at the least.
• Create a link to the MP3 on your website. This is pretty self-explanatory. The Point’s media site is powered by Wordpress, which makes updating the site extremely easy. If you’re using a site created by software (Dreamweaver, GoLive, etc.) I strongly suggest moving your site to a content management solution like Wordpress. But, this is a subject for a different post!

Last year, one of the few books I read cover-to-cover was John Stott’s Your Mind Matters.  One passage that I particularly enjoyed dealt with the will of God.  It seems that in my young, Christian life, I hear plenty of Christians asking what the will of God is for their life.  Should I take this job?  Should I buy this car?  Where should I live?  Where should I go to church?  Stott says:

But how do we discover the will of God?  Some Christians claim rather glibly “the Lord told me to do this” or “the Lord called me to do that,” as if they had a hot line to heaven and were in direct and continuous telephonic communication with God.  I find it hard to believe them.  Others think they get detailed guidance from God through the most fanciful interpretations of Scripture passages which murder the natural sense, violate the context and have no basis in either sound exegesis or common sense.

Stott breaks down the will of God into two types:

• General will - God’s will “for all his people in general at all times.”  This part of God’s will has been revealed through the Bible.  He says we need to “study, to discuss and to pray.”
• Particular will - God’s will “for particular people at particular times.”  This part of God’s will might be different for different Christians.  Stott uses the example of marriage.  Scripture tells us marriage is good, but being single is also good.  The Bible will tell Christians to only marry Christians.  It will tell you the qualities to look for in a partner.  It will tell you sex is reserved for marriage.  But, it will not tell you “whether your wife is to be Jane or June or Joan or Janet!”

So how do we discover God’s will in tough situations?  Simple.  Pray, seek the counsel of your parents, pastor and other Christian friends, and study the Bible.  Finally, use “the common sense which God has given you.”  He says, “you must make up your mind, trusting that God will guide you through your own mental processes.”  I’ve also heard it said that God doesn’t care what kind of car you drive, who you date, or where you work.  He does care that you make those decisions based on His Word and a relationship with Him.  If you factor these things into the equation, chances are, you will make a good choice.

This is but a sample from a great, short book that I highly recommend.

I’ve spent the last couple of days revamping a few things on The Point’s media site.  I’ve restructured the sermon archive to enable people to browse sermons by date, scripture and (soon enough) series.  I’ve also started a Flickr account, and revised to photos page to include links to gallery slideshows.

Next on the list, I want to tackle a better way for people to browse our bible studies.  Most likely, I’ll just create a separate page for each bible study.

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While reading through Matthew, I read what Jesus says makes a true disciple:

Matthew 7:21-23 Listen

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

This begs the question - how do we become a true disciple?  If we back up a bit, we can see:

Matthew 7:17-20 Listen

17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

But, the only way to produce good fruit is to build on a solid foundation, found later in the chapter:

Matthew 7:24-27 Listen

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

It is my prayer this week to obey Jesus’ teaching to be found a true disciple.

I’ve had a productive and yet restful weekend.  Friday evening, I spent time setting up my home electronic drums (a hodgepodge of different pads & hardware).  My new Alesis Trigger came in, so I wanted to get started using it with the included BFD software.  It came with BFD Lite, but it is a really cool piece of software.  I’m planning to upgrade to the full version to get access to more higher-quality sounds.

Saturday, I sat in disappointment as the ‘Cats dropped a game to Louisville.  This team is going to set new lows for the program.  Don’t believe me?  Read this.

Saturday evening, the Josh Martin Band had a belated Christmas get-together, sans Doug (who had a family get-together of his own).  We had a good dinner and enjoyed each other’s company - without playing music - for a change.  It’s rare that we’re all together to hang out when we’re not playing music.  We did, however, have a “band meeting” to discuss some plans for 2008.  Perhaps the biggest news is that we might be adding a new member to the group, along with recording our next studio project.

Today was a great day at The Point.  Please go listen to the sermon if you get a chance.  Good stuff.  This afternoon, I spent some quality time on the media site, revamping the structure of the sermons page.  My humble attempt to mimic Desiring God’s sermon resource library.

Random Link:

• Slate has a good article on Joel Osteen.  My favorite quote from Joel - “I’m not called to explain every minute facet of Scripture or to expound on deep theological doctrines or disputes that don’t touch where people live.  My gift is to encourage, to challenge, and to inspire.”  Get out of the pulpit then!