There was however activity regarding the ministry of the whole laity as a result of the concerns expressed at the time by the World Council of Churches over the lack of a theology of the laity. This led to a series of publications including Neill's (1963) work on the 'history of the laity' and works on 'a theology of the laity' by Kraemer (1958) and Congar (1959)

The growing work of The Iona community and its desire to examine the relevance of the ministry to the contemporary world led one of its leader's Morton to team up with Gibbs to develop two popular theological works on lay ministry. The first (1964) sought to work out Kraemer's desire to release God's frozen laity and the second (1967) expressed frustration at the failure of the church establishment and the laity to adopt the ideas "Kraemer and the other veterans" and work towards a theology of the laity. Despite their emphasis on the laity Gibbs & Morton saw Readers and other forms of lay ministers such as Lay Preachers as a pragmatic solution to the financial and staffing needs facing all the main denominations in which the job holders became "some kind of substitute clergy" rather than the fulfilment of a desire of the church to develop a valued form of lay ministry. The legacy of their work on the laity has been rather overshadowed by the popularity of the idea of Celtic Worship.