Andy Rowell

Church Leadership Conversations

  • Theological and Biblical Audio Resources

    Here are a number of good sources for theological and biblical audio.

    • Regent College Bookstore: Regent College, where Eugene Peterson taught and where I did my MDiv and had him as a professor, has a superb independent bookstore Regent College Bookstore, that has a wonderful collection of audio (CD's and downloadable audio) by Peterson and other theological and biblical heavyweights including Gordon Fee, John Howard Yoder, J.I. Packer, John Stott, N.T. Wright, Alvin Plantinga, Bruce Waltke, Kevin Vanhoozer, Stanley Grenz, Richard Hays, Albert Borgmann, Walter Brueggemann, Neil Postman, Charles Taylor, Peter Berger, F.F. Bruce, Derek Kidner, Stephen Evans, Alister McGrath, Richard John Neuhaus, etc. for purchase.  Yes you have to pay for them but these are seminary quality professional productions and support a good cause.  Regent audio is money well spent for your soul and mind.  They provide a sample at: http://www.regentradio.net/  
    • Wheaton College Theology Conference audio and video: 2011, 2010, 2009.
    • Duke Divinity School audio at iTunes U. You just need to have iTunes (a free downloadable program for PC or Mac from Apple) installed on your computer for the links to iTunes U to work.  
    • Fuller Theological Seminary audio at iTunes U.
    • Eugene Peterson's lectures at Seattle Pacific University are online
    • Purchase or listen for free to Karl Barth audio. The ones in English are in Chicago and Princeton.
    • John Howard Yoder at Holden Village Audio
    • Holy Trinity Brompton bookshop in London, UK had lots of Lesslie Newbigin cassette tapes in 2004 when I visited but they do not list their offerings online.  I know of a couple lectures online:  the first is from 1995 on "Nihilism" from a conference at Holy Trinity Brompton; the second is from a 1991 conference in Toronto and it is called "Christ: Unique and Universal."
    • Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary also offers some free audio courses at their Dimensions of the Faith website.
    • Covenant Theological Seminary also offers some free audio courses at their Worldwide Classroom.
    • ChristianAudio.com has Christian books in high quality audio for purchase.  They also have a free download each month and sometimes it is good.
    • Your public library may also allow for free downloadable audio books as my Durham County Library does.  See my recent listens at: Nonfiction Audiobooks from the Library
    • Audio Bibles at Biblegateway.com
    • The Bible Experience available perhaps at your library.  
    • Greek / Latin / Hebrew Bible read aloud or search Google: greek audio bible
    • NT Pod by New Testament professor at Duke University Mark Goodacre.  I listened to the first 40 of these while I was preparing for my NT preliminary exams.  They are short (under 15 minutes each) and engaging.  Goodacre teaches NT to Duke Undersity undergrads and graduate students who are of all religious backgrounds (rather than at the Divinity School where the students are all Christians) so he tries to keep his comments historical and objective by the standards of the Society of Biblical Literature guild rather than theological/Christian.  Goodacre is particularly good at teaching about the Synoptic problem and persuasive as well.      
    • See also on my blog the Audio category for my past posts about audio including some SBL / AAR recordings.

     

  • Eugene Peterson’s lectures at Seattle Pacific University are online

    The audio and video from Eugene Peterson's Scripture as Formation lectures at Seattle Pacific University October 20-21, 2011 (also part of the North American Professors of Christian Education conference) are now available online.

    Eugene Peterson Scripture as Formation lectures audio and video iTunes U Seattle Pacific University

    You just need to have iTunes (a free downloadable program for PC or Mac from Apple) installed on your computer for the link to work.   

    I posted a few paraphrased quotes from his lecture at: Eugene Peterson on Mark's Gospel

    If you want to tweet quotes on Twitter, you might want to use the hashtag #SAF11

    They are both superbly written lectures.  Peterson maybe talks a little fast in delivering them but they are delightful classic profound Peterson.

    For more good audio see my post: Theological and Biblical Audio Resources

  • Magic Tree House books especially on audio are good for 5-6 year olds

    Our 6.5 year old son Ryan has listened to the first 35 Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne.  There are 46 so far.  I just ordered from the library the next 10.  Besides the first one which I read to him, he has listened to them on audio.  I recommend them for introducing general knowledge about history and different countries in a tame way suitable for 5-6 year olds.  The CD’s are available from the library or you can download a number of them from the library or buy them.

    My only caveat is that there is some glorification of mysticism, gnosticism, and native religions in some of the books that if you are a Christian, you are going to want to quash.  That is to say Jack and Annie sometimes get out of jams by quasi-religions figures (medicine man, ninja master, etc) advising them to meditate, focus, concentrate, become one with nature, etc.  As a Christian, I would say that these tales need to be supplemented or overwhelmed by immersion in the biblical narratives (see my recommendations of Bible story books or NIrV, What’s in the Bible) so that our children can grow in their sense of how the God of Jesus Christ acts in history and develop the ability to detect dubious imitations. 

    Still, the Magic Tree House books provide a basic working knowledge of people and places from dinosaurs to George Washington to India to Thomas Edison.  The kids like it when they can look at the pictures in the books while listening to the audio CD’s–though ours don’t follow along in the books carefully–instead mostly just listening.  Our four year old can sort of follow them but I would recommend age 5.  The author, Mary Pope Osborne, reads the books and does a good job giving voices to the different characters. 

    When you have the chance to read out loud to your kids, I would recommend working through some of the kindergarten books recommended by Jim Trelease and buying his guide (see How to choose which books to get at the library or see my categories Books and Library Books).  Trelease recommends the first book of the Magic Tree House series but they are not superbly written in the way that Charlotte’s Web is so I would say use the audio for Magic Tree House as almost-educational-TV-entertainment and read to them more quality books with your read aloud time.

    My sister-in-law who has older kids said they enjoyed the non-fiction books that can be read as background for the books–the Magic Tree House Fact Trackers but we haven’t gotten into those. 

    The first 28 titles are short while 35-46 are almost twice as long but you won’t really notice.  The latter have the subtitle: “A Merlin Mission.” (Source: Magic Tree House website).  

    Our local University of North Carolina Morehead Planetarium and Science Center has a Magic Tree House Space Mission Planetarium show.