Friday is my day off and I’ve got two goals for the remainder of this year – read more, and get fit. Last Friday I had a spring in my step because I had made progress on both those goals – at the same time!
I jumped in the car, drove to Drummoyne, and started out on the Bay Run – one of my favourite places to go running – it’s flat, and spans the edge of the bay at Iron Cove.
Before I left home I downloaded an audio book from christianaudio. To be honest, in the past I’ve been pretty sceptical of audio books – I was unconvinced of the value of listening to a book – why listen when you can read? However, you can’t read a book and go for a run, and I saw the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. It was an excellent decision (even if I do say so myself!).
The book I listened to was Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit, by Francis Chan. It was a challenging morning – physically and spiritually (you can check out a review of the book by Tim Challies here).
Audio books aren’t only of value when you’re exercising. You can listen as you’re drifting off to sleep, or sitting on the train on the way to work, or as I did just the other day – stuck in traffic on Military Road. I’m driving to Canberra later this week, so I’ll be downloading a book I haven’t read since I was a child – Pilgrim’s Progress.
One of the great incentives to sign-up with christianaudio is that each month they release an audio book, available for free download. This month, the free download is a recording of the New Testament – visit http://christianaudio.com/free and use the code SEP2009. You’ll need to sign-up for a free account to redeem the download. What a good way to make the most of your commute – by listening to the Bible, or another Christian book, on the way to or from work.
Giveaway!
To encourage you to give audio books a try, christianaudio are participating in a giveaway. They are offering 10 gift vouchers to their online store, each valued at $25. To enter the draw, simply post a comment below – 10 commentors will be drawn at random from this post, and the same post over at Sydney Anglicans. One entry per person.
Audio books have been a joy to me ever since I discovered Audible.com. There’s not too much Christian material on that site though, so I’m glad that you’ve pointed us to ChristianAudio.com.
Had a quick Google for the God’s Word translation that is the free download of the month. It is apparently a pretty loose translation, based on a variation of the dynamic equivalence principle; that probably makes it fine for listening in the car, but I would personally run back to my NASB to check out anything I learned from it.
I notice that they have a large collection of books on Theology. Cool!
That sounds like a great idea – i’m going to sign up.
Thanks Steve. I’ve never quite gotten into the audio book thing in the past. Maybe it’s time to give it a try!
I’ve just signed up and begun downloading my free new testament audiobook. Thanks Steve.
Christianaudio is awesome
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One of the most fascinating audio books I’ve listened to was Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell & Don Golden. (Would prefer to leave discussion of its theological content for another time and place).
I found the recording style quite unique. The two authors take it in turns to read chunks of the book and add extra comments throughout. Rob Bell writes in a conversational style, which makes an audio version feel quite natural.
It was a very palatable way to “read” a book.
Grabbed myself the free New Testament just recently – good work on the site and your tweetering, have been really enjoying reading (I should probably post more!).
Iv really enjoyed listening to Podcasted sermons while driving to and from work, this could be a great way to make my “teaching playlist” more versatile.
Besides who want’s to read a book while driving, i’m pretty sure it’s illegal.