The truth about Numbers...

Well, I have now uploaded 47 readings, praise God! It is a very demanding regimen as you may have read from my previous post, and 365 seems insurmountable. But you know what, I know that God wants me to complete this taskbecause he is providing a bounty of learning with every reading.

When I first started my wife and several others said, "Sure, it's all fun and games until you get to Numbers." While I was originally apprehensive, I can now say with great confidence and joy that the fear of Numbers is proof positive that you have never completed the marathon of rituals, offerings, celebrations and laws that are Exodus and Leviticus. In fact, once you get past the census and the anointing of the altar, Numbers starts getting pretty intriguing about Chapter 8:

The setting apart of the Levites-in place of-the Israelite first born
The Israelites heading out of Sinai
The Quail fall (3' of dead edible quail as far as the eye could see)
Miriam and Aaron's rebellion
The exploration of Canaan and the rise of Joshua (did you know he was on the original expedition?)
The rebellion of the Israelites and their defeat at the hands of the Amalekites and the Canaanites
The first recorded Sabbath breaker stoning
God's wrath against those that would usurp Moses and Aaron

And that is just through chapter 16. This is a really, really exciting book, I highly recommend it, of the first four this has been the most exciting to me personally (and yes that includes Exodus).

On to the next chapter!

Almost through Leviticus...

Whew, I must admit that I have found Leviticus a very interesting Book at times, but definitely a tough recording. The advantage of Genesis and Exodus is that there is a great deal of narrative, so you can follow the chronological birth, exploits and passing of our ancestors. Not so with Leviticus, it is a straight listing of laws and ordinances for the most part except with the passing of Nadab and Abihu (Aaron's sons).

Nonetheless, it clearly spells out that which is clean and unclean, the differing offerings and rituals of the Israelites and truly reveals the character of Christ in his disdain for the rigid legalism of the Pharisees during the time of His teachings. The rigidness of the laws, and the brutal finality of the consequences of sin, sins that we commit every day, is a real wake up call.

"If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord's commands, even though he does not know it, he is quilty and will be held responsible" Leviticus 5:17 NIV (Emphasis mine)

Really adds the capital "S" to Saved doesn't it!

Saved from our rebelliousness against God as well as our ignorance of God's commands!

I am starting on reading 39 tonight to get ahead of the curve because I am certain that if I start making progress and people start getting into the Word, Satan will take notice. I am so thankful with every single reading that we serve such an awesome God, and that He makes His will known to us...and it is all written down.

Thank you for all of your encouragement and prayer, and please listen to a reading or two and provide your feedback and what you have learned (other than Aaron's got a cheap microphone :))

Genesis is complete!

I am very excited and can hardly contain myself from letting my Pastor know how far the Lord has has provided for me to progress. I have now recorded and uploaded 17 days of readings, Genesis is now complete and I am moving forward with Exodus. While I doubt I will be receiving any hits to the blog anytime soon, I thought it would be nice to record a few thoughts about generating the readings for the public.

First, awhile back I had seriously considered doing a fundraiser for my church in which the Bible would be read over a period of "x" hours, like a marathon. Seeking sponsors and using it as a time of continuous fast and prayer as the participants, and anyone with the opportunity, would have the Word shared straight through. I originally thought it might be done in 60 hours, but I had no confidence in that number. So, I decided to read several chapters out loud and time myself, being sure to speak at an even, understandable pacing. The test was a failure because of the variety of chapted lengths, sure I could get through Genesis 10 in 5 minutes, but Psalm 119...not so much. So I decided to find a straight though reading which broke the Word into daily segments. I have discovered that by reading the Bible at an understandable pace in one year out loud requires about 14 minutes per day.

Using simple mathematics...14 x 365 = 5,110 minutes of reading = 85.17 hours. Therefore, it is plausible that a readthrough of the word may be completed in a little over 3 days and 13 hours. That may serve as a little long for a marathon reading and it would not provide any time for prayer breaks.

Next, I felt compelled to read through the Bible from start to finish one time myself using an existing plan in 2007. Of course I decided this on December 29th, so I had to scramble.

As you may have read in my prior post it took about 6 hours to complete the first couple of readings, and much of that time is spent on the technical aspect of recording, softening, saving, converting and uploading readings.

Recording: I did not have a great deal of success pausing my recordings and restarting, so with all the disturbances in my environment I found myself forced to record and re-record just the introduction about 6 times; the dogs would start playing, the kids would ask a question, the furnace would start up, the phone would ring or my wife would make the appalling choice to start the washer or dryer (about 6 feet from my makeshift recording studio). All of these events generally occurred about the time I reached the last sentence of the recording. So intead of trying my luck with recording 2 or 3 chapters at a time, I complete the previous chapter and record new readings one chapter at a time, then place the readings in order on a single track. This appears fairly effective so far, but I must admit there were a couple of chapters that were real trials.

Genesis Chapter 49 is a great example, I could not get a good start on the chapter at all, and then when I got started it seemed like very time I was almost complete the phone would ring!; I must have read that chapter about 8 times before I got through it.

While recording I am listening to the same music you are in the background, and don't ask me how I decide which music I will have in the background, it's really whatever seems to inspire me to read more. After I have completed the recorded reading I then arrange the music to cover the expanse of the reading as best I can.

Softening: While I have a reasonable reading voice, I. like most, cannot stand to hear my own voice recorded a capella. So I add light music in the background and then I use an equalizer to pretty much eliminate the highest frequencies since I dont want to sound more like a snake than I already do with my cheap microphone and to emphasize the baritone quality of my voice for a more relaxing, and less breathy. tone.

Yes, with a cheap DJ headset microphone and no pop filter, I have to manipulate the voice the Lord blessed me with. Trust me, I am certain he would not have blessed me with the software to do so had he not wanted to spare you the pain of unfiltered listening. I deeply apologize if you felt misled.

Saving: Once I have recorded the reading and softened it, it takes about 15 minutes to convert the recording into a .wav file. The file for a 14 minute, two track (music and voice) recording ranges from 140 to 165 megabytes. Which is very big considering that, at an average of 150MB for 365 installments would be approximately 55 gigabytes.

Converting: Once I save the file as a wav I send it thorugh my handy-dandy wav converter, let it bake for about 3 minutes and out pops a freshly minted 22 to 26 megabyte mp3. I then delete the original wav, as it is just taking up space and I can reproduce it at any time from my recording software.

Uploading: At approximately 25MB my new .mp3 file is 1/6th the size of the .wav file, but it is still too large for uploading to a free account a SoundClick.com, therefore I am paying for a monthly VIP subscription so that I may upload files up to 40MB thus the request for donations if you feel so inspired. Uploading the file to soundclick takes approximately 15 minutes because of it's size.

That's the process.

All in all, I figure a 15 minute reading takes about 90 uninterrupted minutes to process. Much more if my wife chooses to provide clean clothes for the family, which appears to be her yen, God bless her for that truly. It's kind of funny, I have learned (mostly by my mistakes) how to record, soften, save, convert and upload all of Genesis...and yet, it is beyond me how much detergent is the correct amount for a load of wash. Go figure.

God bless you and make sure to visit and rate the readings at http://www.soundclick.com/aaronmorrow the more you visit the higher the rankings go and the more people are exposed to the The Word!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Aaron

Introduction, Day 1 and Day 2 Posted..hurray!!!

Lord be praised! There are now 2 days (out of 365) posted along with an introduction to the challenge at http://www.soundclick.com/aaronmorrow The entire process took about 6 hours and required an upgrade to VIP status on soundclick (because of the size of the files!!!), but I believe I will become more efficient and that God will remove additional obstacles as they come along. Since I have had exactly no hits on the site that I am aware of, it may just be me for now but AngelVon at Christian Songwriters Network says she's along for the ride, so I have some peer accountability now as well. If you haven't visited the site before, the link is below. The member of the forum are so gifted and provide wonderful Christian fellowship (even over the net). http://forum.christiansongwriters.org GLORY!!! :) Praise God!

2007 Bible Reading Challenge Introduction

Blessings to you! My name is Aaron Morrow, and I have made a commitment to read through the entire Bible over the next year. I will be reading the New International Version of the Bible and using the “Straight Through the Bible Reading Plan” available at the HeartLight.org website, which I encourage you to visit. Reading the entire Bible is an experience I hope to share with you by recording daily readings in MP3 format for you to download for free. Each MP3 will cover a daily reading designed to complete the entire Bible in one year. In order to increase your spiritual growth as we journey through the Bible together, I request that you: Seek the Lord in prayer, requesting that He prepare your heart for the reading and thank Him for giving us the Word. Listen to the reading as many time as is necessary to glean from it that which God is revealing to you. As you have time, use my message board to share what God revealed to you through the scripture. I prayerfully request that you embark on this challenge with me. While all of the MP3s are free to download, I will place on my site a link for donations to provide for the opportunity to help support the technical requirements of our journey through the Bible. I will faithfully tithe on any donations received. God bless you and thank you for honoring God through your commitment to listening to and meditating on His Word.