By Father Joseph M. Champlin

Tall, pipe-smoking Father Richard Morrow hails from a city in Connecticut with a heavily Catholic population. He serves, now, as pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Smyrna, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb in 2% Roman Catholic Cobb County.

The native New Englander runs an imaginative team-ministry parish whose three "assistants" are Humility of Mary nuns. These women share in the work, the decision-making, the life of St. Thomas.

"Come, meet, chat with some of our fine folks over a cup of coffee after morning Masses." That opening line in one weekly bulletin means come, meet, chat with the pastor, the sisters, and the active, well-organized parish council.

One of the latest joint projects involves closed circuit television training or "micro-teaching" of lectors. The parish initially rented ($80.00 per weekend) a Sony camera and playback machine for use with its dozen readers on a Sunday afternoon. Each participant was asked to prepare in advance all the standard commentator and lector texts form the beginning of Mass through the Gospel.

According to the carefully arranged staggered schedule, three would record, then move to another room and view their presentations without comment or note taking. They next watched the tape a second time, jotting down self-criticisms, the observations of fellow lectors, and Father Morrow's recommendations.

A second recording session immediately afterwards brought instant and significant progress, and improvement which has carried over to ensuing Sunday celebrations. These readers now make better use of pauses, enunciate more clearly, change tone and speed for emphasis, prepare with greater care, and often memorize key words or phrases so they can look at the congregation while proclaiming those important words.

Bill Jascomb, an engineering lawyer for Lockheed and past president of the parish council, believes strongly in this training program. A lector himself, he finds that television replay of one's performance hits the whole person and forces the individual to see himself face-to-face.

It pushes the reader onto some honest, painful self-criticism, a healthy process not always possible when others point out weaknesses and we quickly raise defensive barriers to protect ourselves.

This "micro-training" however, needs, in the judgment of Jascomb and Father Morrow, to be repeated about every three months for sustained growth in the quality of a lector's reading. Talented electronic parishioners in Smyrna agree. This is why they have constructed (for about $1,000) a partially homemade television setup quite suitable for training both readers and religious education instructors at St. Thomas and in neighboring parishes.

"Readers should be qualified and carefully prepared so that the reading will develop in the faithful an appreciation of scripture." Dry words from the general instruction of the Roman Missal (no. 66), but so true.

We will never change congregations from riveted concentration on the printed page toward attentive listening to the spoken word until lectors are qualified and carefully prepared. Television training of readers certainly will hasten that day.