Puppets are an effective tool in children’s ministry. However over the last few years, they’ve gotten a bad name. The main reason for this is because they aren’t used effectively. Here are a few tips to help you utilize puppets in children’s ministry.

Short Skits: Using puppets for life application skits can’t be effective if they’re kept short. Don’t ever use skits that go longer than five minutes. This isn’t a puppet performance, it’s a children’s service. Puppets are only one part of the service and should never go longer than the youngest child’s attention span.

Bible Stories: Puppets are a great tool to tell Bible stories. You can use Bible character puppets or have a puppet tell the story in his own words.

Comic Relief: Comedy is a great tool for keeping children’s attention. One way to do this is to have a silly puppet that always messes up the lesson.

Announcements: Puppets are a great way to make announcements or to share the rules.

Music Specials during offering or opening: Just as churches have soloists during big church, use puppets to do solos and perform a song in children’s church.

Memory Verse Introduction: Puppets are a great tool for introducing the memory verse for the day.

Click this link to buy a downloadable book with short memory verse puppet skits.

Back-up Singers for Praise and Worship: Puppets can be your praise team during praise and worship. One word of caution – Be careful not to detract children from praising God.

Some Cautions:

• Always keep the skits short
• Make sure the puppeteer is trained
• Don’t use puppets too often or for the entire program

The type of puppet stage you use will affect the your puppet ministry. You could use resources you already have such as a window or a door with a curtain, or you can build or buy one. Here’s some puppet stages you could use.

PVC Pipe: A few years ago, everybody was making puppet stages out of PVC pipe. The reason not very many people are still using this kind of stage is because it is flimsy and falls down easily. If you do go this route, glue the pipes together to make them sturdier.

Tripod: This is the most popular store bought stage. It comes with curtains and metal tripods to hold it up. It is collapsible and easy to story. Here are pics of two versions of tripod stages.

Handmade Wooden Stage with hinges: Another great stage is a handmade wooden stage with hinges so it can fold for easy storage. These stages are easy to make and can be painted to reflect any theme.

Muslin Backdrop: If you make your own stage with a curtain backdrop, use muslin as the material. Behind the stage paint the wall black. Keep the lights on in front of the stage. This way, the puppeteers can see the audience, but the audience can’t see the puppeteer.

There are many types of puppets. If you’re considering starting a puppet ministry, it’s a good idea to decide ahead of time what types of puppets will work best for you. Here are a few that work well for children’s ministry.

Hand Puppets: Hand puppets are puppets where the operator puts his hand in the puppet to control it. They come in animal and human form and are available in various sizes.

Rod Puppets: Rod puppets are hand puppets that had rods attached to the arms so the puppeteer can control arm movement.

Wrap Around: Wrap around puppets are usually animal hand puppet that have long arms and legs that wrap around the operator and attach to each other. These are usually used in ventriloquism.

Full Body Puppets: Full body puppets are usually the size of an adult and require more than one operator.

Black Light Puppets: Black light puppets require some preparation. They are glow in the dark hand puppets. To crate the black light effect, a room must be completely darkened, and a black light bulb is lit.

Ventriloquism Dummies: Ventriloquism dummies require some training on how to use the devices inside the make the dummy move and to learn ventriloquism.

Marionettes: Marionette puppets have strings attached and need training to operate.

Puppets can be a very effective tool in children’s ministry. If you have a puppet ministry or are planning to create one, here are some tips on taking care of puppets.

Store puppets in dry places. Moisture and humidity can ruin expensive puppets.

Never use the mouth to pick up things or bite with the mouth. This destroys the cardboard area around the mouth.

Change puppet clothes for different looks, themes, and characters. Size 2T – 4T Clothes can be used for average size puppets to create a variety of looks.

Rod arms can be used to move hands. Puppets will appear more lifelike if you use rods to manipulate puppets’ arms.

Resources for Puppets

• Sunny Puppets   www.sunnypuppets.com
• One Way Street www.onewaystreet.com
• Christian Book Stores
• Educational Supply Stores