How Many Lay Leaders?

Somebody asked me recently how many lay leaders we had under my urban ministry. I said without hesitation: "Thirty." That was in an average sized Church or a bit bigger. But surely that was too high? So we wrote it down. It came to well over thirty. "Maybe fifty," said the person who asked. It depends of course on what a "lay leader" is. I counted anyone who was appointed to lead in any kind of way, at a given time, whether it was an elder, a worship leader, or a children's group leader (and so on). OBSERVATION: Often it is the case that, where a Church is viable and vibrant, if one divides attendance by three, one may have about the size of the lay leadership. One then adds to that the paid staff.