Tag Archives: puppet ministry

Look Back with Jeff & Clyde

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One year ago, my son and I put the finishing touches on our joint book project, Puppet Ministry Pizzazz, with an acknowledgments page. The first person Jeff wanted to mention was the late Millie Jones, an elderly member of our church family. As Jeff wrote, Millie was “a light of love and positivity that shone brightly despite her small size.” What a wonderful legacy!

Jeff & Clyde in “Clyde Is Unique”

Jeff & Clyde rehearsing

Jeff & Clyde rehearse for “Clyde Is Unique”

Last night I ran across a letter Millie wrote to twelve-year-old Jeff after he and Clyde performed at a worship service. Their skit, titled “Clyde Is Unique,” featured a song that contrasted Jeff’s talents and interests with those of his sister. For one thing, as you see from his sweatshirt, Jeff was a Dallas Cowboys fan, while Theresa rooted for the 49ers. The takeaway was that each of us is special, a one-of-a-kind creation by God. (An updated version of “Clyde Is Unique” is one of the fourteen sample scripts in Chapter 4 of Puppet Ministry Pizzazz.)

Here’s what Millie’s letter had to say about Jeff and Clyde’s message: Continue reading →

Puppet Ministry on YouTube

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Moochacha Learns about Grumbling title screen

News Flash

Moochacha and I have had so much fun recording our faith messages that we’ve collected our videos into a new Puppet Ministry playlist on YouTube!

Our Facebook post of “Moochacha Learns about Grumbling” reached 700 views in just a few days, so we decided to upload the videos to the YouTube platform for a broader audience.

Whether you’re a puppeteer looking for ideas or a kid (of any age) looking for gently humorous faith lessons, we hope you’ll be inspired by our little performances. Enjoy!

Linda

P. S. While you’re visiting my YouTube channel, please check out the Now Sings My Soul playlist to hear vocal renditions of some of my favorite hymns and faith songs from Now Sings My Soul: New Songs for the Lord.

 

Zoom into Puppet Ministry

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With churches closed down by the Covid-19 pandemic, many congregations have turned to technology solutions like Zoom to hold worship services, meetings, and Bible studies online. Teaching the pilot class of the “Puppet Ministry Pizzazz” course via Zoom last month was a bit of a challenge. But, in the process of learning the ropes, I discovered that Zoom could be a useful tool for puppeteers to broadcast and record their conversations with a puppet pal.

For the following three videos, my laptop’s built-in camera and microphone recorded Moochacha chatting with me in a Zoom meeting window. The laptop did extra duty as  teleprompter. After hitting the Record button in the Zoom window, I clicked over to a Microsoft Word document containing my script (in a different window, NOT a Zoom screen share). While I scrolled through the Word doc, Zoom continued to record me in my Zoom window.

Continue reading →

Moochacha as the Easter Bunny

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Linda with Moochacha as the Easter BunnyHappy Easter season, everyone!

In a previous post, I showed you the costume goodies I scavenged for my puppet pal from Wal-Mart’s Halloween clearance shelves. The bunny ears and tail and the felt basket with a soft lamb design were a no-brainer to use in an Easter skit with Moochacha. Little did I know how circumstances would shape the way those props led into our 2020 Easter theme!

Our church, like hundreds if not thousands of other congregations, suspended worship services to fight the spread of the coronavirus. Since we couldn’t be with our church family in person, Moochacha and I took our Easter message to YouTube. We incorporated our feelings of isolation and disruption into the message itself. You can watch it on my YouTube channel, or use the video viewer below.

Your turn!

Maybe this time of social distancing is your opportunity to try personal puppet ministry yourself! You can practice and re-record your message as many times as you wish, then post your finished video on YouTube or other free platforms for your audience to enjoy. If you’re willing to wing it, try Facebook Live. There you can get feedback immediately in the comments, for a more personal, interactive experience.

Your message doesn’t have to be religious, either. You and your puppet pal can chat on video to teach and entertain and comfort, and simply stay in touch with your family, students, or anyone else. Have fun!

For lots of puppetry resources and links to all the posts in my Puppet Ministry blog series, make like an Easter Bunny and hop over to the Puppet Ministry Resources page. And get a how-to head start with Puppet Ministry Pizzazz: Make Your Message Pop with a Puppet Pal.

Stay safe! God bless!
—Linda

 

Puppet Ministry~of Course

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News Flash!

Binghamton District Lay Servant Ministries of the United Methodist Church is sponsoring a brand-new course based on my book Puppet Ministry Pizzazz: Make Your Message Pop with a Puppet Pal. Being a UMC lay speaker myself, I’m super excited about this opportunity to equip and inspire more puppeteers.

Personal Puppet Ministry

Artwork by Jeffrey W. Olin. ©2019 Linda Bonney Olin. All rights reserved.

The course will focus on “personal puppet ministry”: a solo puppeteer sharing the love of Christ and teaching lessons about the Bible, the church, or Christian living, by chatting with a puppet buddy in front of audiences of any size and any age. Personal puppet ministry adds a fun but meaningful element to children’s time in worship services, to Sunday school and vacation Bible school, to visitations, and many more settings.

I’m preparing to lead the pilot class, assisted by my pal Moochacha and my son’s pal Clyde (visiting from Texas). We’ll meet at First United Methodist Church, Chapel Street, Windsor, New York, for a full-day session on Saturday, May 9, 2020. Eligible participants who complete a pre-class assignment of reading and activities in addition to attending the class can receive advanced lay servant/speaker course credit from the Binghamton District.

If you’d like a flyer with information and registration form for the May 9 course, pop me a request on the contact form.

EDIT: Class postponed indefinitely due to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, I’m working on the syllabus and leader guides for both the one-day class format and a 4-evening classes format. Farther down the line, I hope to create a scriptwriting workshop for puppeteers, too. We’re looking forward to submitting these courses for possible inclusion in the UMC Lay Servant Ministries Course Catalog nationwide. It’s a big “ask,” but my Holy GhostWriter is up to the task, God willing.

News Flash #2 (about being #1)

Speaking of my HGW being on the job… Puppet Ministry Pizzazz reached Amazon’s #1 Best Seller status among Kindle books in the Puppets & Puppetry category earlier this week! That was a huge gift of encouragement. Amazon rankings fluctuate pretty quickly, but I snagged a screen shot before my book got bumped out of the number one spot.

Amazon Best Seller screen shot Sorry, Elmo!

To follow my journey of developing a ministry with my pal Moochacha, check out the series of puppet ministry blog posts here on Faith Songs. You can find that and other helpful stuff on my Puppet Ministry Resources page.

Blessings,
Linda

 

Puppet Props for a Puny Purse

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’Tis the day after Christmas, and all through the store
puppeteers can find bargains on goodies galore.
On foot or in car or on sleigh, giddyup it
to get props and costumes for you and your puppet!

Clyde & Linda wish you a Merry Christmas

Clyde and I are a day late (or 365 days early) with our Christmas greeting, but we’re right on time with a tip for your personal puppet ministry.

The days following Christmas and other seasonal holidays offer a terrific opportunity to pick up nifty props and costume items for your puppet pal, without busting your budget. Clearance shelves in discount department stores are stacked with holiday-themed hats, shirts, bibs, neckties, decorations, and who knows what else, at bargain prices. Don’t forget to scout those bins for puppet accessories when you raid the stores for clearance candy and return the wrong-size jammies from Grandma.

Halloween clearance goodies for MoochachaLook especially for items you and your puppet pal can work into a premise for a ministry message. In the Halloween clearance sale, I found a headpiece with bunny ears and a cute basket to dress my cow pal, Moochacha, as the Easter bunny. We could develop several lessons from that setup. (Edit: Check out “Moochacha as the Easter Bunny.”)
For another example, Moochacha wearing a glitzy unicorn horn could prompt a conversation about the precious, unique identity each of us is created with, or about envy.

Jeff and I had a lot of fun with the “Ho! Ho! Ho!” hat in the Merry Christmas photo above. But it wasn’t just comical. It also launched a serious discussion about Christmas generosity and cherishing God’s gift of family in “Clyde Teaches Jeff a Christmas Lesson,” one of the fourteen sample scripts in Puppet Ministry Pizzazz. In that skit, the “Ho! Ho! Ho!” hat served as a callback to add humor, emphasize the lesson, and unify the skit. (Using callbacks is explained in the chapter about writing your own scripts.)

’Nuff said. Giddyup and go see what treasures are waiting for you and your puppet pal! Leave a comment to let us know what you found.

Happy foraging!
Linda

P.S. If you missed previous posts in the Personal Puppet Ministry series, catch up here:
Puppet Grace
Picking a Puppet Pal
Picking a Puppet Pal, Part 2
Puppet Pal ~ Personality Plus
The Puppet Leaves the Pulpit
Puppeteer & Pal Meet the Kids

For more info and suggestions, check out this page of puppet ministry resources and my brand new how-to book, Puppet Ministry Pizzazz: Make Your Message Pop with a Puppet Pal.
Puppet Ministry Pizzazz comes in print and digital versions

 

Puppet Ministry Pizzazz Has Arrived

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The Third Sunday of Advent speaks of a long, dark season of waiting, culminating in great joy when the Lord’s promise was fulfilled. Of course, Advent refers to the centuries people waited for the promised Messiah, whose arrival Christians celebrate on Christmas Day. I’ll bet Mary’s nine months of waiting felt like a century, too, and her joy when the promised son finally lay in her arms is a pleasure to contemplate.

Another long wait culminated in great joy on this year’s Third Sunday of Advent. After years of working off and on to produce a book on personal puppet ministry, I finally can announce the arrival of Puppet Ministry Pizzazz: Make Your Message Pop with a Puppet Pal.

Puppet Ministry Pizzazz has its own page here on Faith Songs, and you’re invited to hop over to that for detailed book information. But Moochacha and I couldn’t resist giving you a quick video intro:

Rejoice, with pizzazz, friends! The Lord has fulfilled his promises: a book and a baby, safely delivered. Pray with me, too, that Puppet Ministry Pizzazz will be a source of blessing in many lives. The world needs more messengers of faith and hope and love, and that’s what puppet ministry is all about.

Is the Lord calling you to give it a try?

Merry Christmas!
—Linda

P.S. If you have read and enjoyed Puppet Ministry Pizzazz, please help spread the word. A great way to do that is leaving a brief review on Amazon or other websites where interested readers gather. Thanks!

Puppeteer & Pal Meet the Kids

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When you and your puppet pal are up close and personal with a live audience, especially kids, there’s no telling what might happen! But going “up close and personal” is a big ingredient in personal puppet ministry, so thinking about audience interaction is super important.

In this installment of the Personal Puppet Ministry series…

Let’s see what lessons about audience interaction we can glean from my gig with my little cow puppet pal at Harpursville United Methodist Church on Ascension Sunday. This was Moochacha’s first encounter with children during worship services.

Here’s a quick encore:
“Moochacha Learns about Saying Goodbye”

Singing “Jesus Loves Me” with the entire audience had already been scheduled to close every performance. You can’t beat that message! Hopefully the children will enjoy singing along, and those who don’t know the song will learn it as we sing. If you like to sing, you might want to select a signature song to feature in all your appearances, too.

The script for “Moochacha Learns about Saying Goodbye” did not specify any other direct interaction with the audience. In fact, I’m embarrassed to admit that I hardly made any eye contact at all with the three kids who came forward for Children’s Time. My attention was glued onto Moochacha, talking to her, talking for her, and moving her head and body at appropriate times to give her a lively, responsive appearance.

Moochacha and Miss Linda meet the kids on Ascension Sunday at HUMCFixating on my puppet was partly due to nervousness. My nerves are always on high alert when I conduct services as a lay speaker. Children’s Time is the biggest fear factor of all. Let’s face it, little kids flummox me. My own kids flummoxed me (still do, in their thirties!). Other people’s kids flummox me even more. So I was wound up tight as a tick, sitting in the hot seat facing three attentive children.

Continue reading →

The Puppet Leaves the Pulpit

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My Personal Puppet Ministry saga continues! If you missed earlier posts in this series, you can catch up here:
Puppet Grace
Picking a Puppet Pal
Picking a Puppet Pal, Part 2
Puppet Pal~Personality Plus

More lessons learned with Moochacha

My last post shared the debut of my little cow puppet pal, Moochacha, during children’s time in worship services at Harpursville UMC and Ouaquaga UMC. That day, all the “children” in attendance were adults in our second childhood, so I performed the puppet script at the pulpit, with Moochacha perched on the lectern where everyone in the pews could see her.

(By the way, even though I use the word “perform” for what I do with my puppet pal, the purpose of personal puppet ministry is not to grab the spotlight. A puppet performance during a worship service, however entertaining it might be, is intended to put the spotlight on the Lord and his love.)

Moochacha’s second outing took us to the same two churches on June 2, Ascension Sunday. The theme of the sermon, scripture readings, prayers, and music (see bottom of post) was basically that Jesus left earth and returned to heaven in triumph, but he did not abandon us. My scripted conversation with Moochacha coordinated with that message.

We never know how many children will attend the Sunday morning services. Sometimes, none. So, the puppet skit must present a premise and message that are engaging for adults as well as children. Saying goodbye is an experience all ages can identify with, making it a good topic for our mixed audience. It was especially poignant for the older folks because several members of our close-knit church family were dealing with recent or imminent death of loved ones.

Moochacha Learns about Saying Goodbye:

As it turned out, on Ascension Sunday we were blessed with three early elementary age children at Harpursville. That blessing brought a few extra challenges for the puppet performance. This post will look at the logistical side of performing away from the pulpit.

Continue reading →

Puppet Pal ~ Personality Plus

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My Personal Puppet Ministry saga continues! If you missed earlier posts in this series, you can catch up here:
Puppet Grace
Picking a Puppet Pal
Picking a Puppet Pal, Part 2

Once again, audio recordings of today’s post are provided for your listening pleasure (I hope!). The post in written transcript form follows, for those who prefer to read.

Audio post, part 1:

Personal Puppet Ministry

As I’ve explained in previous posts in this series, personal puppet ministry is what I call a solo puppeteer and his/her puppet pal sharing God’s love by chatting back and forth in front of an audience, basically playing the “role” of themselves. It’s a totally different style from puppet plays in which the puppeteers are hidden under a stage where puppets act out a Bible story or a story with a moral lesson. Personal puppet ministry is more interactive with the audience, and more… well, personal.

I’m a novice puppeteer, starting out with two puppet pal candidates. One is a cute little cow. The other is a black crow.

Stuffed cow with blue eyesBlack crow

The crow needs major surgery to be converted from a regular stuffed animal to a hand puppet, so I’m going to postpone developing that character until I have time to make it into a functioning puppet.

The cow is ready to use as soon as I give it a name, a voice, and a personality. Those three elements will hopefully work together to make my puppet a truly memorable character.

My puppet pal’s personality

By “personality,” I mean the kind of characteristics it will have. Will it be male or female or gender-neutral? Sweet or feisty? Talkative or shy? Casual or elegant? Impulsive or thoughtful? City or country? That sort of thing.

Continue reading →