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Pastors are familiar with the excuses, and this one they hear often: People just don't have time to read the Bible.

"There's always a fight," said Pastor Brenton Franks of Evangel Christian Center, a congregation of about 400 people at 4501 Montgomery Blvd. N.E. "As a pastor, you're continually encouraging people to make choices."

Albuquerque churches last month began a program they hope will help their members engage in the Bible without taking up copious amounts of time.

Faith Comes By Hearing, a donor-driven, nonprofit Albuquerque group known for producing and distributing dramatized audio versions of the Bible in hundreds of languages, has embarked upon a mission using the MP3 audio format to bring the New Testament to the masses.

Through its program "You've Got the Time," the company is providing CDs containing its dramatized New Testament to Albuquerque churches.

Already more than 8,500 of the CDs — which can be downloaded onto a portable MP3 player such as an iPod — have been distributed by Albuquerque congregations, the company said. About 30 different denominations around the metro area are taking part in the program.

Faith Comes By Hearing officials point to a litany of statistics that show fewer educated adults are reading books today. Further, they said 65 percent of Bible-believing Christians have never read the New Testament.

While those people — particularly young adults — may not be reading, there's a strong chance they are listening to something with regularity.

"Our young people are listening to something every day," said Troy Carl, the national director for Faith Comes by Hearing. "A very small portion of the population . . . make their decisions based upon what they read."

For more than two decades the Albuquerque company has produced Bibles on tape and CD. It had to sell those products because they were expensive to produce — it took more than a dozen CDs or tapes to record the entire New Testament, officials said.

Even then, they weren't reaching a new audience.

"After 20 years, we were primarily reaching the 20 percent of Christians that already read the Bible," Carl said.

MP3 technology, however, allows the company to compress the New Testament onto a single disc, making it cost effective. The company also offers products such as the "BibleStick," a palm-sized portable listening device with the New Testament programmed on 40 tracks, which it sells for $29.

About 18 months ago Faith Comes By Hearing began testing the "You've Got the Time" program to select churches nationwide. In the program, churches ask their congregations to listen to the entire New Testament over 40 days, dedicating 28 minutes a day.

The goal, Carl said, was to determine whether the audio program would make a difference.

"Would people be more engaged in the Bible? They said `yes,' and it's having great success," he said.

Members of the business community asked whether the company could replicate the success on a grand scale by providing an audio Bible to "every man, woman and child in Albuquerque," Carl said.

Local businesses have already contributed $283,000 to the program — more than half of the program's $503,000 budget, Carl said.

Churches such as Trinity United Methodist Church at 3715 Silver Ave. S.E. have received free copies of the dramatized New Testament.

Also, as of Jan. 15 more than 1,700 people downloaded the file for free from the Faith Comes by Hearing Web site. The company offers downloadable, dramatized New Testaments in 10 English versions or in 260 other languages.

"In an increasingly auditory culture, hearing the word of God has a different impact on people than simply reading it out of a book," said David Madara, pastor at Trinity United. "Much of the Bible was written to be read aloud by a central reader and people would gather and listen. This, in a way, continues the tradition of the Bible the way it was meant to be experienced."

Madara's church has distributed about 70 of the 100 copies it has received, and he designs his sermons around the subjects his congregation of about 65 would listen to through the audio Bible program.

"The idea is we're all in this together, and as a church we hope to grow together through this," he said.

Franks, of the Evangel Christian Center, said his church received enough copies to distribute to about 160 families. The program also includes issuing free copies of Faith Comes By Hearing's "Kidz Bible."

"It mechanizes a way they can utilize . . . time in the car, maybe time when they're working out, time when they're walking the dog that they can listen to the word of God," Franks said.

Carl said Faith Comes By Hearing hopes to spread the program to other major cities across the United States. Already, businesses in Houston have contributed close to $500,000 in seed money to start the program there, he said.

Carl admits the company has yet to gather evidence showing it's reaching anyone other than already-devoted Bible readers.

"But even if that's all we reach, we still make a difference," he said.