volunteers . . .

This week's Harvard Business Idea Cast (podcast) talks about a relatively new and seemingly revolutionary idea. It seems that businesses have realized that their customers are quite willing to help in research, development and even execution of their products and/or services at very little or no cost to the company. It's very interesting to listen to the specifics, like Intuit's online community answering tax prep questions for each other as opposed to paying a bank of experts to do so or Amazon's idea years ago to have consumers rate products as opposed to experts once again.

As interesting as this might be, I must point out that the church has been operating like this from it's inception. Or maybe I should say that it should operate this way. If God has taught me anything lately, it's the incredible value of volunteers in His Kingdom. That handful of paid church leaders are not there to do be God's hand on earth, but to enable the church to be God's hand on earth. This concept is alive and well in certain pockets of the church, but I fear that it's not widespread enough. Lord, please help me not marginalize your Kingdom by doing too much myself.