day no. 14,877: lay leaders do it for free

2 Thessalonians 3:6-12
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Lay leaders lead for free. They work hard in order to provide their services without a fee. This is an example laid down for us at the foundation of all church planting. The church needs more men to serve God for free - to use their time to build, produce, sell and provide for themselves in order to give their free time to serve their God and their local church for free. More men need to devote themselves to providing for first things: their wife, their children, and their neighbors. And after that, they could then use the left over gas in the tank to serve their local church in a lay capacity. Few and far between should be those employed entirely for the Gospel. That said, there should be provision made for those who make their entire living by the Gospel, but theirs should be the rare breed of those gifted to equip others to serve. The Scriptural pre-requisite for being paid to "do ministry" is being good at getting others in the game and equipping them for acts of service. The goal is that everyone would be involved in ministry, not just those on salary.

Ephesians 4:11-12
And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ

Too many see "doing ministry" as an "all or nothing" vocational proposition. Either you get paid to do it and devote your life to it or you don't get paid to do it and leave most of the heavy lifting to the "professionals."