I am not sure how many of you have heard of or spent any time on the website Fiverr.com – I have and it shows how fun a free market economy can be. The concept is that people list what they are willing to do for a small fee of five dollars. One day, I decided to search what services were available when searching the term mormon. Not sure what would come up I found a couple interesting listings, even though fewer options came up compared to some searches.

One of the services offered is for what amounts to be a professional person that prays for people, a professional prayerer (is that a real thing, or its proper spelling?) His ad copy for this services is as follows:

I am so good at prayer that in my previous life I was a praying mantis. Just let me know what you want me to pray for, and I will pray as hard as humanly possible. I own a bible, Koran, Torah, Book of Mormon, so all the major religions are covered. If you wish for me to pray to some other god, or even Joe Pesci, just let me know. I’m an equal opportunity prayer.

For those interested in this service, feel free to click here. After a good laugh, I got to thinking, do people really pay for this sort of thing? Is five dollars a good deal, or is that the going rate? If I paid him five bucks to pray about the Book of Mormon being true, would he actually feel the spirit confirming its truthfulness?

My search continued. After going to another listing that came up, I saw that someone was willing to answer questions about the LDS faith for five bucks — interesting. Since missionaries are actually paying their way to dedicate themselves to this service for 18-24 months, I wonder if they would be bothered by the idea that someone would actually make five bucks off such a thing. (People pay big bucks for pets when shelters can’t seem to give them away; could be the same mentality, who knows?) Maybe people think that they get what they pay for. A free answer from missionaries comes with a catch: you have to listen to the missionaries. With this service, you get the one answer, and nothing more.

Perhaps there is a market for people that will do home teaching for $5?

In any case, while I laugh at these ideas (for my own reasons, not that it is all that funny), is there a perception that God is for sale? I don’t wish people to be unsuccessful in their commercial ventures, but prayer is not for sale. While there are some great products that teach great principles and have a price to them, ultimately these are simply optional tools in building the kingdom. Money is no mediator or watch guard to the heavens. And while it is fun to laugh occasionally at the spiritually ridiculous, I worry about the way the gospel is presented, or at least perceived when it comes to listings like these.

All I know is tithing on those prayers would come roughly to fifty cents… and that home teaching idea sounds like a gold mine.