It was a glorious October day as I puttered about the farm on Saturday. Puttering is about all I’m up to these days. I’m shocked at how slow recovery has been since being released from the hospital. I kinda thought once I was good to go, that meant I was good to go. NOT! So….I sleep, and rest, and putter.

I do my greatest thinking while puttering, and on Saturday I was thinking about all the fuss in the news about Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. I won’t weigh in on the core theological issues—-though I will tell you I’m pretty sure the Mormon nurse that shoved a tube the size of a garden hose up my nose and down into my stomach last weekend and sucked out 2 liters of nasty is probably a candidate for sainthood—-but I will share a thought that hit me as I contemplated “What could evangelicals learn from Mormons?”

Certainly, there’s a lot we could learn on the issues of health, industry, and family. But what really intrigues me about Mormonism is how well they have done with virtually no paid clergymen. As I understand it, Mormon churches (called “wards”) and districts/synods/associations/dioceses (called “stakes”) are all led by volunteers. Volunteers, undoubtedly skilled, trained and equipped, but volunteers nonetheless are leading the churches and the ministries of Mormonism as it grows in popularity and influence across America. My Baptist-type friends could learn something from that.

Probably the two most influential protestant groups in American history have been Methodists and Baptists. It might interest you to know that in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries both of those groups grew rapidly with mostly non-professional, un-paid, volunteer clergy. Meanwhile professional-dependant denominations—-like the Episcopal Church, for one—-we’re largely marginalized, just like mainline denominations have been, and low-church groups like my own Baptist sect are being reduced to irrelevance today.

It seems to me that volunteer-led religious movements have a flavor of “by the people” to them. They are almost the “Tea Party” of religion in America. They have a vitality that well-educated, highly-trained, well-paid professionals are largely incapable of producing. There is something about simple people sharing honest faith lessons and praying honest prayers that is very powerful. Yet credential those same people, put them in a robe, a suit, or in an official position seen as “above” the people and the same lessons and same praying loses its punch.

Anytime I bring up the notion of laity-led ministries and churches, my pastor friends (read “I get a paycheck from the church”) are quick to “poo-poo” me as an ignorant simpleton. They trot out Paul’s phrase from Corinthians that “those who preach the gospel should get their living from the gospel” as a proof text in defense of their position. Unfortunately, they simply don’t get it. I’m not against a person being paid for doing ministry. I’m against ministry being reserved for those who get paid to do it. The Body of Christ suffers when pastors fail in their Biblical mandate to equip those under their teaching to do the work of ministry. The influence of the Kingdom of God wanes when we reserve it for certain people to wield influence. Far better, I believe, to teach them HOW to do ministry work and then unleash the gifts, talents, and experiences of people who are in our churches. That’s the Mormon model, and we could learn something from it. Moreover, it’s the Biblical model and we should be profoundly cautious when we deviate from it.

A church should measure its success and effectiveness on how many people it has equipped and released for ministry, not how many gather in its pews on Sunday. In fact, wouldn’t it be kinda cool if on Sunday the church building was mostly empty because all the members were out ministering somewhere.