GLO Puppet Ministry is an outreach ministry of the youth at Sunnyside Baptist Church. It is comprised of youth in grades 7 - 12 who have a heart to share the Gospel with others in a creative way. We have performed in numerous churches, both in state and out of state, nursing homes, pre-schools, and parks. Basically, anywhere The Lord opens a door for us.
When we first started, we had about 8-10 youth that were willing to practice on Sunday afternoons before our evening service. We met in a small room with a two tiered stage. We would occasionally perform a song on Sunday evening and this was the extent of our practice. Angie Helvey, Lisa Powell, Tammy Hines, and myself, began to pray that He would grow this ministry and God soon blessed it and answered our prayers. We began to grow.
As of today, we have approximately 40 youth and 8 adult leaders. God is so good. We have grown from 1 prop and puppet room to 3 prop rooms plus a huge storage room that we practice in. It's even beginning to get a little cramped when we practice. But....this is a wonderful problem to have. Our productions have gotten more elaborate, and our minds are constantly thinking puppets.
We asked the kids to think of a name for our group, and GLO was it. It stands for what they want this ministry to be...Go. Love. Others. Which they do an incredible job of doing. These kids are what make our puppet ministry what it is. They allow God to use them in whatever way He directs. They also chose our key verse, Matthew 5:16, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven."
I suppose that pretty much sums up our puppet ministry and what it means to us. We hope to share what we've learned over the years with you and maybe plant that seed for you to start a puppet ministry in your church. Our hopes with this blog is to share how we make props, choose themes, store all of the goodies, and where we find our supplies. If we can be of any help whatsoever, please use the contact information and send your questions, or share what is working for you. I think we can all say we are:
Looking to further the Kingdom,
Tammy
I am so happy to have found your site! I just took the position as Children's Church director at my church, and my pastor has asked me to start a puppet ministry. I used to be a school librarian and teacher, so I have a little bit of puppet experience, but not nearly enough! Any advice for where/how to begin? Right now we have no budget to speak of, but we do have one Folkmanis dolphin puppet and a very small puppet stage. (It was actually a stable for the manger scene that my husband built a few years ago. I just turned it around backwards and added some black sheets from Walmart!) I would greatly appreciate any advice on getting started, acquiring puppets, script ideas, etc.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
Rhonda
I'm so very excited for you as you begin this ministry. I have to warn you, it can become very addicting. Angie and I are constantly seeing something, or hearing a song on the radio, and think, "oh, my, that would be an awesome puppet song."
DeleteI really don't know where to begin....
It sounds like you are on the right track. Wal-Mart twin sheets are the best!!! If you've got your stage, you're ready to go, and, if you decide to add black light, which the kids love, the black sheets are what you need. Wal-Mart is also the best place to purchase black lights. I would go ahead and suggest, if you can find those "black grim-reaper" looking hoods at Wal-Mart or the Halloween stores, go ahead and purchase those. The kids will also want to wear long sleeve black shirts and black gloves. We buy the little stretchy $1 black gloves. This way, they will blend in with your stage and the audiance will not notice them as much.
We have found that Amazon is the cheapest place for the Folkmanis puppets. These puppets would be a great start. Our new puppeteers can work these much easier than our larger puppets. Also we have purchased from The Puppet Store as well. I'm working on a post for the blog now about how we make "stick puppets with foam board, poster board, and paint sticks from Lowe's. We use a lot of clip art and poster and foam board. Dollar Tree is now carrying the foam board.
As far as skits, we really do not do a lot of skits with the kids. We have found that it is much easier for them to do pre-recorded songs than try to talk and move a puppet's mouth at the same time. Our big performances usually have a couple of adults that perform the dialogs and the puppets perform songs between the acts. You can view our last big performance on Sunnyside Baptist Church's website. I have a link posted on the blog in the top left corner of the screen. I'm sorry to say that you cannot view it on an ipad or tablet. It seems to only work on our desk top. Also, if we are performing on Mission Trips in parks or at pre-schools, nursing homes, or churches, our Youth Pastor will present the Gospel between our songs. This allows good transition times between the songs so that the kids can swap props and puppets.
We use a lot of Veggie Tale songs and Go Fish songs. The kids really seem to relate well to these songs. We keep all of our songs on an IPod and with ITunes now, you can download only 1 song at a time, which is much cheaper than buying the CD's. But, the Veggie Tales CD with 150 songs is great!!!
I could ramble on and on. We were wondering if you lived close to Kingsport? We could arrange a meeting with you and let you look at our prop room. I pray this will help some, and has answered some of your questions. I'll try to get the post on here about the stick puppets before the end of the week.
We will be adding you and your new ministry to our prayer list. I know you will receive many blessings from this. Please keep us updated and if you have any more questions, don't hesitate to "hollar" at us. Have fun with this!! Tammy
Thank you so much for the advice and encouragement! I am so excited to get started. Unfortunately, I live just south of Atlanta in Georgia - a little too far for a visit. That would be great, though! I am going shopping tomorrow to see if any of the toy stores around here have puppets. I have found a couple of skits for Thanksgiving that my 15-year-old and I want to do together.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of using songs for the kids to perform. I have some really fun kids music that might work well! And, we have several Veggie Tales CDs, as well!
I am looking forward to the post about stick puppets! I have already thought about using the foam board from the Dollar Tree! And I will look for the black lights and other items for that. My kids did a show a few years ago with black lights and stick puppets made from fluorescent poster board - it was awesome! They quoted Genesis chapter one, holding up different items as they were created, etc.
Again, thank you so much! I appreciate your advice!
Rhonda
I hope your shopping trip goes well for you. If you're ever near Kingsport, let me know and we can meet at the church. Sounds like you're well on your way. I did get the stick puppet post up on Wednesday. Maybe this can give you some more ideas. Also, Pinterest is a wealth of ideas. Lots of people have puppet boards. Look for mine, Tammy Rogers. I have boards for puppet ministry ideas, stage set ideas, and we are looking at doing a rainforest theme in the future, so I've pinned a lot of tropical looking things. Also, if someone in your church sews, you might get them involved. People pin puppet patterns all the time. We have an awesome lady, Beth, that has made us some beautiful puppets!!! God bless and hope to hear from you soon! Tammy
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