I was in Gospel Doctrine on Sunday and enjoying a wonderful lesson — well prepared, excellent participation from the class, beautiful spirit, learning new things — all of the things I hope for when I attend. Then there was a HINT of a disruption. Not a major problem, just a glitch. Our teacher started to tell the story from Luke 19 about Zacchaeus, chief among the publicans. Now the problem was that she didn’t know how to pronouce the name “Zacchaeus”. The fact is, neither did I. At least I had a different pronunciation than she did, and several others had a different pronunciation than I did. Finally a vocal member of the class prevailed and that was the pronunciation we went with.

I don’t want to overstate this little disruption. It was far from a skirmish. Barely even an issue. I’m not certain how many in the class even noticed. I noticed because I have been thinking about this some in the past few weeks since we started uploading audio clips from the Sunday School lessons onto LDSClip.com. I have listened to the material nearly every week, but this week I read instead. Listen to how wonderful it sounds from the most recognized bible narrator in the world, Alexander Scourby.

As a Gospel Doctrine teacher, I want to have as little disruption as possible. Something as simple as HEARING someone pronouce the name of Zacchaeus properly before I have to pronounce it in class, gives me great confidence and minimizes unnecessary distractions. I have also heard from a Gospel Doctrine teacher whose class is getting along in years and they struggle reading. He downloads the clips to his iPod and uses them in class so EVERYONE can hear them read clearly and well.

Since the reading assignments are so short, my new goal is to make certain that I read AND listen every week. It will be fun to see what I pick up when I do that!