I’m going to try and explain the three ways you can make MP3s available to an audience using internet tools. The audio contained in the MP3s is up to you. Could be Bible study material. Could be a sermon. Could be music. It has to be something you want to give away for free (or put it behind password protection or something…that’s all up to you).

Option 1: Traditional
You take your MP3 files and upload them to your special MP3 folder (okay, anywhere on your server). Then on a page of your website people visit (say the homepage) you put a link saying “Download latest MP3 here.” That link goes to the latest MP3 and you probably have another link to the list of MP3s available (the archive).

Advantage: Easy
Best Use: No real order to MP3s, just posting them
Disadvantage: You rely on people to come to your site to find them

Option 2: eNewsletter
You do the very same thing in Option 1: Traditional but this time you offer an email subscription. People sign up and when you post a new MP3 you send an email to everyone subscribed. You can include a link to the new file or you can attach it to the email itself.

Advantage: Relies on “push” technology to subscribers
Best Use: Your MP3s have an order to them and you want people to receive them in order
Disadvantage: Spam blockers, attachment blockers

Option 3: Podcast
You do the very same thing in Option 1: Traditional but this time instead of offering an email service to subscribers, you set up a RSS feed and allow people to subscribe to it.

Advantage: Cleaner way to distribute with no fear of blocking
Best Use: Audience wants to carry the files with them on their MP3 player
Disadvantage: Bit more difficult setting up RSS, mass audience does not understand RSS and Podcasting…yet.

In any case, you should be doing archiving them online (Option 1) and then pushing notification to subscribers. Only difference in eNewsletters and Podcasting is the technology used to send notification (email vs. RSS) and technology to receive (email client vs RSS reader/Podgrabber).