Puppet ministry is surprisingly effective and enjoyed in our high tech world. There is always something special about live performance. There is a relationship that happens between the performer and the audience, that no video can have. Puppeteers can ad lib and customize the show to audience response, really bringing a live audience into the show.
Puppets play a huge part in our children’s ministry programs. Children love the puppets and adults enjoy them, too. For many children that join us for Vacation Bible School, the puppet skits and songs are their favorite part.
Puppets used to be the mainstay of children’s television programming, but with the advent of cheap computer animation, puppets have disappeared from most kid’s shows. Having puppets in the church is actually new and refreshing to the younger generation.
Kids are used to computers and video games – won’t they find puppets boring?
Over the past 18 years I have been using puppets, I have discovered just the opposite. Kids are fascinated by these talking stuffed creatures. Mr. Rogers would captivate his audience with the simplest of puppets, while Sesame Street brought a new style puppet to children. Today, still, children just love puppets.
Puppets become real to children and adults. As a figure develops his character he or she becomes a unique individual with unique personality traits and quirks.
You always knew the Cookie Monster was going to gobble things up, whether it be cookies or the shape of the day. Grover was always going to be a bit absurd and Ernie was going to drive Bert crazy.
Over a five-night Vacation Bible School program, children get to know my puppet, Elmer, as a silly boy always getting things confused or aggravating his female cohort, Becky Becky is usually the serious one and Elmer is the instigator.
The children always yell when Elmer comes on the scene. Although I do Elmer’s voice in our skits, Sometimes my wife does Elmer as a silent puppet. He will pop up behind my back and the kids yell. When I turn around, he disappears. After a few times, I will catch him. Then I ask questions of him, Like, “Did you memorize your Bible verses?”
Elmer answers with head nods and shakes, by looking away, etc. My wife does an excellent job making him come alive without words.
Puppets Grab And Hold The Audience’s Attention
According to Christian Puppeteer Richard Gibson, “People will listen to puppets sometimes when they will not actual people. We have as many adults as kids that have said they want us back to share Christ again. I know our team and others that have had people come to alter at the end. We had one show that we had to keep stopping the show 3 times due to people coming to the altar.
Kids listen to puppets
It plants seeds for God. Which is what most ministries really do. Most of us will not know what God does with things He has used us for in the end. But, I can tell you He is involved. e Bible says if 2 or more gathered, He is there. So if a team is sharing Christ, we have an Audience of ONE and everyone else will get to worship with us. SO YES. I think puppets can reach people. I have seen it.
Think of it this way, Billy Graham and other preachers reach a lot of people just standing behind a pulpit sharing God’s Word. We just do it with Puppets. And less Air Time. We do have black lights and lighting for a couple of songs in our shows. They enhance the attention. Which goes back to, getting someone to hear us share Christ, Which is what it is all about.“
If your puppets are engaging and animated, your audience will key in on what they are saying. This allows your message to really be heard.
Kids of all ages love puppets
Puppeteer Laura Wray says, “Our ministry team is requested by adults and senior citizens the most. Especially hospitals. They can touch people of all ages. Puppets bring another bridge that some can relate to and bring them to the Lord. We add tech into our performances as well with videos to help enhance and keep attention by continuing to change things up.”
Matthew Chandler adds, “Kids of all ages like puppets. And doing shows live gives you a chance to improv a bit with the audience – something a video can’t do. Plus, I’ve found when I walk around with puppets, not only kids but adults like to put their fingers in my animal puppet’s mouths! “
Puppets Are Fun and Capture Your Audience’s Attention
Yes, people LOVE puppets. They are fun and they are personal. With puppets, the audience can be brought into the show. They feel they are right in the moment. With video, the audience members become mere spectators.
A stage full of puppets creates excitement.
A Stage Full Of Puppets Creates Excitement
Using multiple puppets also creates excitement. The puppets play off each other and create humorous situations. A puppet can pop up and bring surprise or tension or comic relief to a show.
Using multiple puppets can be a great attention grabber. Additionally, you can have a live person interact with the puppets. That is hard to do with video. As I mentioned above, the kids love when I interact with Elmer.
Every Ministry Can Benefit From Adding Puppets
I believe every ministry can benefit from adding puppets. Not just Vacation Bible School or Sunday School, but hospital ministry, nursing home ministry and even ministry to adults.
Puppets are just more characters you can add to your ministry without adding more personnel. I’m not just “Brother Dennis,” I am Elmer, Andy, Grandpa Possum and several other characters. My wife is Becky, Maria, Silent Elmer and multiple animals. Even my 9 year old twins add puppets in the background when we do songs with the puppets.
If you want to bring my family to your church or event, check out our ministry at www.winthechildren.com
How To Create an Exciting Children’s Ministry Environment
Many times, as a childrens evangelist, I have had childrens ministry leaders and teachers tell me they wished they could grab the students’ attention the way I do. Others wish they could write lessons and puppet scripts. I am blessed to have a wild imagination to go with my passion for teaching children and adults.
In this article and others in my blog, you will discover the creative process I use to develop new VBS programs every year, Sunday school lessons and family messages and improve on old ones. I have skills in creating magical illusions, balloon sculpture and puppetry. I will refer to these skills often throughout the book. You may not have these skills, but you have your own.
My wife uses her ability to play mountain dulcimer and her story-telling skills to connect with kids during VBS. Other teachers use other skills, including things like painting, chalk art, ventriloquism, musical instruments and more.
The goal of this book is to motivate you to incorporate your talents, gifts, and interests into your teaching methods. I want to inspire your creativity.
LET’S BE CLEAR Throughout the article, I often refer to my school shows. I have been fortunate enough to support my family and be able to afford to minister at small churches with little or no budget by presenting science, math and educational shows. I have been in over 2400 schools in 30 states in the past 17 years, while having the freedom to schedule ministry programs and help churches.
I also make references to magic and magic tricks. The King James Bible never mentions magic. It mentions magicians. Daniel was a magician. The Hebrew word translated magician in the King James Bible means a scribe or wise man. They were advisers to the kings. Some good, some wicked.
When I present “magic” as an object lesson, I never use it to deceive or imply I have a special power. I always make it clear that what I do is a skill learned from years of practice. Not witchcraft or sorcery. It’s funny how some people think that stage magicians have demon power.
Although I use the word “magic” in my books, I do not use it in church meetings and programs. When used in the book, it always refers to an object lesson that is surprising, or as they say, “magical.”
MY AMAZING DISCOVERY
In 1998, I was preaching every week at the juvenile detention center in New Philadelphia, Ohio. I was blessed to do this for three years. The young people were always attentive and engaged. They enjoyed hearing the Bible lessons and being challenged. I asked by a church in Cambridge to come every Wednesday evening and help with their young teens ministry and give a weekly devotion. The kids were ages 10-14 and many from troubled homes.
The first week, I bombed. These kids had little interest in what I shared. I left, not wanting to ever go back. But I did. The next week, I tried to pump it up. I was enthusiastic and gesturing like a mad man. Again, the interest and interaction were meager at best.
After much prayer, I remembered that I knew how to turn two one dollar bills into a five dollar bill. The third week, I told the parable of the talents. I turned two five dollar bills into a twenty. Two ones into a five, (a slight variance on the Biblical account), and a one dollar bill didn’t change. I used the transformations to illustrate the story. The kids were riveted. They listened!
The pastor told me the following week that on the way home in the van, they couldn’t stop talking about the lesson.
I had invented what is known as “Gospel magic.” I later learned I was not the first to invent it.
I went to the library. I checked out magic books. I found effects that I could use to illustrate lessons. None of them required demons, witchcraft or any form of evil. Over the next three years, I became an accomplished magician. More importantly, I learned to develop messages that had eye appeal as well as ear and mind appeal.
I learned how to create object lessons that did not require “magic.” I taught myself balloon sculpture and used that. I became an expert at creating memorable lessons. My local librarian encouraged me to create educational programs for schools and libraries. This has allowed me the freedom to support my family, help small churches with few funds for an evangelist and set my own schedule, freeing me to minister as God opens the doors.
You, too, can become an expert at creating engaging and memorable lessons.
CREATIVITY
Creativity is the ability to consciously produce different and valuable results. An operational definition of creativity is the ability to make new connections between ideas or stuff. The evidence of creativity is observable behavior. It could be a poem, a solution to a math problem, dancing a new dance.
Creativity in education is desperation disguised as something wonderful. It comes from a teacher trying to reach every student in the classroom. Not just the gifted students, the slower students, the mainstream students, the auditory learners, the tactile learners, but every single student in the classroom needs to understand the concepts. The task seems impossible.
Desperation and impossibilities come together and creativity is born.
Creativity is ignoring the conventional lesson plans at least once in a while to reach a student who needs a different approach. It’s an open mind to any idea that is not harmful to a child. Creativity is the real reason most teachers wanted the job in the first place. Creativity is seeing education with the wanderlust of a child.
There is no ideal model or one best way to be creative. Just as there are multiple styles of intelligence, there are multiple styles of creativity, or talents, within this definition. These talents can each produce different and valuable results. Results can take a multitude of forms. Results require both sides of the brain. And no one way of being creative is better than another. They are just different!
THE FIRST RULE OF CREATIVITY
The first rule to being creative is to create. Look at a problem or situation and think of a solution. No matter how unusual, or unseemly, think of a solution.
Use your imagination
It doesn’t matter what you create of how you create, it’s just that you create something. We are designed and created to be creators. God himself is the greatest of all creators and we are created in his image. We are each unique. We each look differently, act differently and think differently. Therefore, we should all be expected to express ourselves differently. Creativity is achieved by expressing ourselves in unique and different ways.
You may think, “Teaching children is hard for me. Wouldn’t it be great if a martian could come and teach it for me.” A silly idea, yes. But how could you incorporate it into your teaching?
Could you create a puppet skit with a space theme? Maybe your puppet wants to be an astronaut and fly to heaven. You could then explain the only way to heaven is through Jesus. Could you create coloring sheets with the planets and a Bible verse on how God create the stars and moon? Could you get some photos from NASA, showing the vastness of space and the amazing things scientists have seen with the Hubble telescope? Use those to talk about what an amazing God we have?
Isn’t this fun?
MY CREATIVITY
My inspiration always seems to come from a challenge. I’m a deadline kind of guy. I often wait until the last minute to create a lesson, write an article or even develop a show. This gets my creative juices flowing as I dash to meet the deadline.
We do VBS every year for a church in Alpena, Michigan. We have other churches we do every other year. That means I can’t have just one program and do it every year. I could probably get by with 3 or 4 shows and repeat them, but I like to do something different every year. This keeps it fresh both for the hosting church, but for my wife and me.
Two years ago, we did a pirate theme. Now lots of folks do pirate themes, but they always end up glorifying pirates. For years, I wanted to do one, but that last thing I wanted was good guy pirates. Pirates are bad. To present them any other way glorifies sin.
In the 1700’s and 1800’s, America had river pirates on the Mississippi and other rivers. I came up with the idea of a riverboat theme. I did part of our program as a riverboat captain. My wife became No-Beard the Pirate. Hers was a silent character, but tricky. Each night during the week, I would start an object lesson and be distracted by my pirate puppet Jack Spareribs. At that time, my wife would sneak in, in costume, and do something to sabotage the lesson. One night, while my back was turned, she switched my raccoon puppet with a skunk puppet.
On the last day, she interrupted me and attempted to swipe my treasure chest, containing “ The World’s Greatest Treasure.” I then informed her I had been trying to catch up with her to give her the treasure. In the chest was a Bible, indeed, “The World’s Greatest Treasure.” We had fun but also showed the need to evangelize the lost and love our enemies.
Another year, I was influenced by the USA Network’s slogan, “Characters Wanted.” I changed it to “Character Wanted” and we did a week on building Christ-like character. We had many characters that week including the Selfish Sultan, Oliver the Octopus and Freida the Frog.
This is funny, but also presents the ideas in a way children can remember.
To learn more about being creative and developing engaging lessons, see these articles:
Ministry, whether preaching, teaching or even playing a Bible game is communication. Everything we do in ministry depends on our ability to communicate the message to the audience. Of course, I love to do this with puppets, but I also do it with “magic tricks” and story-telling.
Puppets are not just stuffed toys bouncing around behind a stage. They are characters. As their personalities are developed, they become very real to your audience. They can communicate great messages in memorable fashion to your listeners. This is one of the secrets of Sesame Street and the same applies to ministry, teaching the Bible and Christian living.
I believe effective communicators are creative communicators. We are always looking for new ways to bring interesting and unusual illustrations and objects into our messages to engage the listener.
Here’s another list for you:
C – Competition
R – Recognition
E – Expectations
A – Affirmations
T – Toys & Visual Aids
I – Involvement of the audience
V – Voice and tone
E – Energy
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. As educators, our job is not to get the horse to drink, it is to make him thirsty. Create a thirst for knowledge in your students, and they will learn.
Competition
Not all students respond the same way to competition. Some will thrive on competing with others, some will shirk away. If we push a noncompetitive student into competitive situations, they will fail.
On the other hand, we need to develop in our students the ability and desire to compete with themselves. A student needs to be able to walk away from any task, confident and happy be- cause they know they did their best.
We need to learn how to challenge our students.
If you have highly competitive students that will work hard, it can help students that lack confidence to work in teams. Let the unsure work with the confident. Develop lessons and activities that allow every student to use their skills to their best ability.
Recognition
Students respond to rewards.
Students respond better to rewards than punishments. Find ways to reward not only achievement but also effort.
One school I do assemblies for has a program to encourage students to be involved in the arts outside of the classroom. During the school year, anytime a student attends a show, goes to a museum or the zoo or attends a sporting event, they are to bring the ticket stub to school. Every student who attends at least one cultural event during the school year gets a certificate. A student that attends ten or more events gets a gold seal on the certificate. A simple way to recognize and encourage students.
Perhaps you could do something similar with learning Bible verses or for kids that come to kids club, getting them to attend Sunday School. During VBS programs, any child that brings a first time visitor, even an adult or parent, gets to spin our prize wheel. Mom stays for one VBS program, the child gets to win a prize and I get to share the gospel. Over the years, we have seen a lot of parents get saved and many families join the church.
Find ways to recognize what your students do. Have a chart for extra curricular reading. You might have them present their hobby to the class. Hobbies like stamp collecting, model rail- roading and scrap booking involve skills and knowledge that help a child to grow as a person. When you recognize these as areas that the students are being successful in, the desire and confidence to succeed in other areas grows.
Expectations
Evidence suggests that teachers can improve student learning by encouraging high standards.
The expectations teachers have for their students and the assumptions they make about their potential have a tangible effect on student achievement. Research “clearly establishes that teacher expectations do play a significant role in determining how well and how much students learn” (Jerry Bamburg 1994).
Students tend to internalize the beliefs teachers have about their ability. Generally, they “rise or fall to the level of expectation of their teachers. When teachers believe in students, students believe in themselves. When those you respect think you can, YOU think you can” (James Raffini 1993).
Teachers’ expectations for students-whether high or low-can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, students tend to give to teachers as much or as little as teachers expect of them.
A characteristic shared by most highly effective teachers is their adherence to uniformly high expectations. They “refuse to alter their attitudes or expectations for their students regardless of the students’ race or ethnicity, life experiences and interests, and family wealth or stability” (Barbara J. Omotani and Les Omotani 1996).
Affirmations
A powerful way to help students build confidence and achieve more of their potential is to show them how to revise their limiting beliefs (e.g., “I can’t memorize,” “God can’t use me,” “I never finish what I start.”). Affirmations are powerful tools for helping them replace this negative inner chatter with a more supportive thought.
As a teacher, you need to send positive messages to your students whenever possible. Acknowledge that you can see the efforts they have made. Acknowledge when they do good. When I am doing a program, I let volunteers know when they have followed directions well. Even if they mess up badly, I try to paint it good. I may tell them they are too smart for me, and I take the blame for a failed trick. If they get embarrassed, I remind them what a good sport they are and how happy I am they helped.
Toys & Visual Aids
My shows and my children ministry programs are full of visual aids. Magic tricks, scientific demonstrations, signs and posters all act to reinforce the message I am sending.
Funny props can create interest
Of course, my favorite toys are my puppets. Puppets are animated, cartoonish and engage young and old alike. Puppets can be used to show a character making a bad decision and then how that is resolved. Puppet characters can teach all sorts of lessons through conflict, story-telling, humor, and other theatrical tools.
A good teacher uses visual aids to help their students learn. We remember more of what we see than what we hear. We remember more of what we do than of what we see. Anytime you can introduce a poster, a hands-on activity or a visual demonstration, you are helping your students better understand and remember the material.
In seventh grade, our science teacher used a coffee can, a hose, a candle and some flour to demonstrate a powder explosion. I don’t remember much from seventh grade science class, but I remember that experiment and how it works.
I remember Carl Hollenbeck inhaling on the hose instead of blowing and getting a mouth full of flour. I remember the explosion when he blew into the hose, causing the flour in the can to ignite.
Involvement of the audience
One of the things pastors, teachers and school administrators always notice about my shows is how attentive and involved the students are.
I always use lots of volunteers. This gets students very excited as they see their friends and teachers helping on stage. More important, I use a lot of audience involvement. This means I create opportunities for them to answer questions, clap and even times when yelling out is appropriate.
I often teach Bible classes at the local juvenile detention center. I have discovered that when the teens are allowed to interrupt and ask questions that they are much more attentive than if I just lecture. They become involved. Although I am leading and directing the studies, they feel a part of it.
When you involve the audience, you engage the minds.
A great teacher finds ways to get their students involved as participants of the learning process, not just spectators. There are times when students need to be quiet and listen, but they also need an outlet for their energy and this builds enthusiasm.
Voice and tone
A good teacher must know how to use their voice. They must create energy and interest as they speak. They must use body movements and gestures to create interest.
In eleventh grade, I had a history teacher who lectured in a constant monotone. It was painfully difficult to listen to him. In contrast, I had a professor in college that was a State Supreme Court justice. He was a pipe smoker, and while he lectured, he moved about, often gesturing with the pipe or simply cleaning it in the science lab sink. This little tool and his energy made for a class I seldom missed. I did quite well in this class because the teacher made me be interested.
Energy
If a speaker is tired, and low key, it becomes very hard to pay attention. As I mentioned above, it was my college professors’ energy level that complimented his gestures and speaking.
Energy implies enthusiasm. When you attack a subject with enthusiasm, your students will likewise respond with enthusiasm.
To have energy and enthusiasm, you must get your rest, then prepare for the class. No matter how many times you have taught a subject, review your notes, read more on the subject. Get yourself ready to soar and your students will follow.
I have presented my “Magic of Science” program thousands of times in schools across the country. I have presented it more than all my other shows combined. Yet it is still my favorite to present. I know it inside out and backwards. Yet every time I present it, I see new faces, laughing and learning.
No matter how many difficulties I may have had on the way to the school, when I step in front of those students, my energy soars. I know they are going to have fun and that energizes me.
As a teacher, your energy level should grow as you gain confidence in the material you are teaching. When you have studied the subject, when you have done it so many times you know what the students will ask before they ask, you should be excited. You learn where the rough spots are, then you find creative ways to get beyond them. You become an expert. You get excited and your students will, too.
These are the tools effective communicators have. As a children’s minister as in all ministry, you must be able to engage your audience in your message.
Ministry requires creativity. Whether using puppets, object lessons or story-telling, engaging your audience is key to getting your message to be memorable and affecting.
As I read history, I find there are certain qualities in all creative people.
C – Curious
R – Risk Taker
E – Enthusiastic
A – Active
T – Tenacious
I – Inventive
V – Visionary
E – Energetic
Curious – Creative people are naturally curious people. They need to know what is in that box. They want to know how things work.
Spark a child’s curiosity and you can teach them.
I read a book a few years ago on dog-sledding. I thought it might be a great hobby. After I read it, I realized it would be expensive and time consuming and not nearly as nifty as it sounds. But I was curious.
My librarian is often amazed at the wide selection of books I order in through the inter-library lending system. I get books from libraries all over the state on a myriad of topics.
Curiosity is often the beginning of creativity. When you begin asking questions like “What is that?” What does this do?” “How does it work?” and “Why do we…?” you are on the way to a creative answer.
Children know instinctively to ask these questions. Fran Lebowitz expressed it like this: “Children ask better questions than adults. ‘May I have a cookie?’ ‘Why is the sky blue?’ and ‘What does a cow say?’ are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than ‘Where’s your manuscript?’ ‘Why haven’t you called?’ and “Who’s your lawyer?”
It is by becoming childlike that you can recapture the creativity that isn’t afraid of obvious questions.
Risk Taker – Creative people are inherently risk takers. We think outside the box. We try things that may cause us to be ridiculed.
” We are told people don’t like change. But actually, people love change if it brings hope of something better,” Mike Vance, Think Out of Of The Box
Taking risks means daring to try new approaches or ideas with no predictable control over results or consequences. In other words, taking action when the outcome is unknown. Back when I managed other people’s businesses, I often made changes to how things were done at work without permission.
When the ideas were good, the boss would always compliment me, but also tell me I should have asked first. The thing is, if I asked first, the answer would have been no. Large companies fight change. When the idea was bad, I usually covered it up and no one ever knew.
Being creative, I took chances with my career. It made me very successful but not promotable. Companies promote followers, not the creators. We tend to rock the boat.
Enthusiastic – Creative people are enthusiastic. They are always thinking, looking for new ideas and quick to share them.
I am always bouncing ideas off my wife. Some good, some crazy. She lets me know which are which, too. I need deadlines, or I won’t get anything done. I get an idea, I run with it with childlike abandon. Then, I get another idea and I am off in another direction.
It’s the enthusiasm that keeps me going. The deadlines though make me sort through ideas, develop them and produce finished results.
Active – Creative people are active people. They are not watching television for long periods of time. They are working. A creative mind must be doing something.
In the same way, if you want to be more creative, be more active. Mess around with your arts and craft supplies, read a book on a new subject, take a class and see the creative juices start to flow. Try out your ideas. As they fail, you will learn what doesn’t work and get new ideas to make them successful.
Activity is key to creativity.
” The human race is divided into two classes. Those that go ahead and do something and those who sit and ask, ‘why wasn’t it done the other way?'” Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Tenacious – Creative people are tenacious. They will not quit until they achieve their goal
My weakness seems to be that I can flit from one project to another, leaving many things undone. On the other hand, when something needs to be done, when there is no other choice, I stick to it.
A few summers ago, I decided to cut down a tree that was too close to the house. A big tree. I thought it was leaning away from the house, but au contraire. When I had cut almost through the trunk, the tree started leaning towards the house.
In an almost comedic chain of events, I went about getting that tree down. I bought a come-along (a winch) to pull the tree away from the house and down. The hardware man picked out a nice length of polyester rope he said would work. Unfortunately, the rope had so much stretch in it, the winch ran out of tightening cable before I could apply enough force to bring the tree down.
Plan two, I tied the rope to the ball hitch of my pickup truck to pull the tree down. As I gunned the truck, the rope met maximum stretch, then like a slingshot, snapped back, swinging the back of my truck into a small shed. With the shed destroyed and a dented fender, I moved onto plan three.
I attached the come-along to the ball hitch of the truck with a lock and chain. As I winched in the rope, instead of the tree coming down, the truck slid backwards.
Plan four was next. With the come-along still attached to the truck, I tightened the rope then, I started the truck to pull down the tree. With the slack already removed, the truck would not slingshot this time. The chain broke, the come-along went flying. It ended up twisted and bent from hitting the ground.
In less than an hour, I had destroyed my lawnmower shed, destroyed a brand new come-along and dented my truck. The tree was still standing and still leaning precariously towards my house. I ended up paying a local logger to take it down. Although my efforts failed to bring down the tree, because of my tenacity, I discovered several ways that do not work.
Despite this disastrous lesson, my wife marvels at how good I am at solving problems when they arrive in our lives. She also says being married to me is never boring.
” The first requisite for success is to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary,” Thomas Edison
” The first requisite for success is to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary,” Thomas Edison
Inventive They say necessity is the mother of invention. The creative person needs to invent. We see new applications for old ideas.
In my math show I demonstrate the power of compound interest with a checker board and a story about a king and a jester. The original idea is the old trick of putting a penny on the first day of a calendar, then putting double the amount on each of the following days. By the end of the month, the amount is an in- credible $10,737,418.23.
I changed the calendar to a checkerboard, which means 64 days. The total becomes over eight septillions. I added a story about the king and jester and I ended up with an informative and educational routine that is very memorable.
Visionary – Creative people have a vision. They see what they want to accomplish and apply their skills to that end. As we reach goals and encounter new challenges, our vision changes, too.
” Vision is the ability to see what change is needed and how it will benefit people,” David Pottruck
Student: “This course wasn’t relevant.”
Professor: “If something as vast as mathematics or science or history can pass through your brain without even scraping the sides on the way through, that’s a pretty big hole. Are you sure it’s the course that doesn’t relate to anything?”
To the curious mind, all things are relevant. We are just searching for relevance.
As an educator, I find if I can make a subject relevant to the student, they will develop an interest. Do the young men in your group like athletics? Why not tell the story of Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner who refused to race on the Sabbath?
Do the girls like ponies? Time to talk about Jeremiah 12:5 and not growing weary in serving the Lord. Be sure to have your stick horses on hand.
Energetic – Creative people have lots of energy. Often our sleep is interrupted because our brains will not stop thinking. Our energy is our enthusiasm in action. A creative person channels their energy into activity.
Creative people dive into tasks. Personally, I am a morning person. I like to get up at dawn and dive into the day’s work. I am awake and alert and ready to go. If I get momentum, I will not stop until midnight. I have lazy days, and I also have a tough time starting at all if I start late. But when I am at a task, my mind gets focused and my creative mind just goes.
I find energy is fueled by enthusiasm. Study, prepare and get enthusiastic about your next project and watch your energy levels take off.
Creativity is the way in which education is practically nurtured and developed in children that helps them to become independent, confident and creative human beings. In ministry, this same creativity helps these children to grow in their faith in God.
When a Bible story or Christian topic is presented to students, it is how interesting it is made to them that keeps them engaged and wanting to find out more about it. Encouraging them to research this subject themselves by giving them assignments and projects is one good way to encourage creativity and thinking in young minds. The more they learn and research and the more questions they ask, the more inquisitive their minds become.
Solving problems that arise out of given projects cultivates creativity as in the process there is more new material being discovered. Worksheets, crafts and challenges put the learning right in the hands of the children. My daughters, now 9 years old, love crafts. Hands-on creativity will hold their attention, and by incorporating a Bible verse or Bible account into the craft makes it a great learning tool. They remember the lesson because they were engaged in it.
My daughters love to read their Bible. They will read a parable or story in the Bible and then want to tell me about what they read. We will find them sitting in our living room, in the chair together, reading the Bible.
We thank God for giving them this desire, but we have also built it into them. We often talk about the Bible in our everyday life and share verses that are relevant to situations that come up. But we also read to them from the Bible or refer them to something to look up in the Bible. Everyday tasks and activities often become object lessons.
If you can get your students, young and old, to see the Bible as relevant and challenging, you can create life long learners and disciples of Christ.
Problem solving and researching material helps children to develop new ideas and new ways of thinking and individuality and originality develops. Sticking to one standard way of learning without seeking answers themselves will make a subject boring and tedious and before long the student loses interest in it. It is the teaching style used by a teacher that can bring interest and enthusiasm into any subject.
Teaching a topic from a lesson book can be vastly different from actually bringing in pictures and objects related to the topic or presenting a skit to get a practical feel of what actually happened there and in what surroundings.
Some children show creativity in art, music and design where it is easy to express yourself on paper or through playing an instrument. Creativity is as individual as every student is and while some students have a natural talent for being creative, others need to be encouraged to develop their creative talents. It is therefore not necessary that all students become creative geniuses as it is dependent upon a child’s character and how easy it is for them to be expressive and creative.
Creative skills are easy to instill in young children when they are at pre-school age where everything that is being taught is done in a practical way. The children make things, use drawing and painting skills, they sing and they dance and all the time they are learning things about the world and everything in it. These skills need to be maintained in later school years so that children can solve problems and develop their thinking skills even better.
Making handicrafts, taking part in discussions, having debates, cooking different recipes, doing projects, painting and drawing are all different aspects of creativity. Music and drama are other fields that can help channel a child’s talent towards towards an interest in scripture and service but also promote confidence and a feeling of well being and happiness in the child’s educational and personal life.
CRAYOLA THINKING
When we enter kindergarten, we are given a box of crayons. The colors of the rainbow are at our fingertips to express our- selves. By the time we finish high school, we are using a single black pen.
Children are naturally imaginative and creative. A stick becomes a sword and they are transported to a faraway castle in their minds to fight dragons. Bicycles become race cars. Boxes become forts. My Dad had several junk cars behind our house which became spaceships for me and my friends to travel the universe.
Kindergarten children believe they are great artists, singers, dancers and actors. By the time they finish school, most systems have destroyed that optimism and enthusiasm in exchange for conformity and “realistic expectations.” During their lives, they here expressions like, “Why would you think that?” or “Stop being silly.”
Their imaginations are stifled, then killed and buried.
Unfortunately, many of these now unimaginative conformists become Sunday school teachers. They teach the lessons, but they never create the learning experience that motivates young minds to success. Perhaps you are one of those teachers. Perhaps your creativity lies dormant because you were lead to believe it no longer exists.
It’s time to break out the Crayolas. Get excited again. What did you enjoy as a kid? Did you enjoy playing dress-up, puppets, painting, Play-Doh, or trying weird science tricks you learned at the library? Do it again.
Reignite your passion for fun and incorporate it into your teach- ing. I love magic. I have used this love and the skills I developed to create routines for science shows. I have used magic tricks in preaching to young people and old. I have twisted balloon animals and used them to illustrate a Bible lesson I gave to residents at a nursing home.
The very first school show I did several years ago got this evaluation from the principal, “the presenter looked like he was having fun .”
I now hear things like, “I have been teaching science for 28 years. This is the best science assembly and workshop I have ever seen,” Mrs. Blessinger, Science Teacher Renwood Elementary School, Parma, Ohio.
I just hope they still see that I am having fun. And I encourage you to have fun teaching children.
A SIMPLE FORMULA FOR CREATIVITY
Imagination is intelligence having fun. I wanted to come up with a simple way of encouraging you to be creative. The result was:
S– Stimuli
I– Ideas
M– Make a purchase
P– Play
L– Learn
E– Execute
Stimuli – I like to be surrounded by things and people that stimulate my imagination. I am always looking for new ideas. I love to visit the dollar stores and craft stores. As I cruise the aisles, different things catch my eye and I ask myself, how could I use that to teach a Bible lesson or illustrate a Christian virtue?
At the craft stores they sell inexpensive foam animal masks. I haven’t figured out yet how I can use them, but someday, I will do something that involves animals and my volunteers will be wearing them.
Reading a variety of books and even children’s books can trig- ger ideas. I love learning about Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett. Next year I am thinking about doing a pioneer theme for VBS. Coonskin caps will be the rage. A missionary story about David Brainard, an early American missionary to the Indians will be part of the nightly activities.
One of my dearest friends, evangelist and camp director, George Griffis loves history. I have heard him preach incredibly engaging sermons using the Spartan Wars and the sinking of the Titanic as similitudes to the Christian life.
Teens and adults may not be as interested in puppets as children, (actually, they are!), but an interesting piece of history or science can create a level of curiosity and interest that draws them into the lesson and opens their ears and minds to hear the Bible message it illustrates.
Ideas – Next time you are at the store, look at various things and ask yourself how you could use that to teach a lesson. So when you see something that gives you an idea, buy it. Put it on the shelf where you can see it and let the idea form.
Ideas are also free. Read books. Read Grimm’s fairy tales. Read the little newsletters some restaurants have with little anecdotes. Read the Reader’s Digest. There is an old tale about words being like feathers. Once they hit the wind, you cannot take them back. I used this idea when I wrote my Character Education show to illustrate respect and using kind words.
A good story goes a long way when teaching lessons to your students.
A good story goes a long way when teaching young and old.
Make the purchase – I buy things. Last year, I saw small dry erase boards for a dollar. I bought three. I haven’t used them yet, but I have an idea to use them in a game show type setting.
In my physics show, I use large rat traps to explain elastic energy and potential and kinetic energy. I use them to break plastic eggs from the dollar store. A great lesson, a powerful visual and things get destroyed. A perfect lesson. From there, it is easy to talk about our potential energy in Christ and the kinetic energy (energy in action) of sharing the Gospel.
Play – I take the new toys home and experiment. Sometimes, I don’t know what I will do with the stuff I buy, but I experiment with it. I have fun. I look for ways to make them interesting to other people. I have a hand held egg beater I bought several years ago. One of these days, I am going to incorporate it into a trick. It cost a dollar, but it looks funny if you hold it to your forehead and turn the handle, making the beaters spin. This will be some part of an imaginary device.
Buy things and play with them. You will have fun and you never know what great idea will come.
Learn – I read books on many subjects. More importantly, I study hard when I produce new shows for churches or schools. Amazingly, some of the best books to learn from are the ones written for children. The ideas are related in a way that children understand. The same way you want to relate them to your students.
I also read advanced books and look up trivia. Trivia is great for students. Trivia can be gross or silly or thought-provoking. It also helps me to keep the teachers interested. When I do a program, I always have material and jokes tucked in that will surprise and interest the teachers.
Execute – Take your ideas and try them out. Show your family or your Sunday school class. I like to try things out on my wife. She gives me great feedback and helps me to know when I am off base or scoring a home run. When I first wrote my math show, I had a routine with a box where the ends seem to change places without reason. I built the box. It worked great and it was the coolest little gadget ever. My wife said it didn’t play well. She said the audience wouldn’t really grasp “the magic.” I left it in the show, and sure enough, the only time I performed it, it fell flat.
As a magician, I have also learned that there are two types of tricks. Those devised to fool audiences and those devised to fool magicians. New magicians tend to buy the tricks that fool them. They are learning methods and simple tricks don’t fool them anymore. They forget that they still fool the uninformed. The more complicated tricks are often too convoluted for the average person to follow and make for poor show material.
I no longer buy tricks that fool me. I look for tricks that are easy to do and can be presented in an entertaining manner. People are still fooled and even if they know how it is done, they are entertained.
It is the same with teaching the Bible. Often the stories we learned as children, like the account of David & Goliath, or Jonah, seem simple and common to us, but to both young and old, these stories still fascinate and engage.
I must test every effect and illustration before it goes into a Bible lesson or a school show. Stories, objects, and demonstrations are chosen for their ability to grab and hold the interest of the student and to present knowledge in an easy to understand and remember manner.
As a teacher, you do not need elaborate demonstrations and costumes to be interesting. A homemade paper sack headdress can be used just as effectively as a $500 native American costume to teach about the pilgrims bringing the Gospel to America.
Make it entertaining. That’s my “formula.” Sorry it couldn’t be more SIMPLE.
Finally, I have found the most important rule when using inexpensive items to inspire your creativity, is to buy them NOW and think later. This goes against the logic of being thrifty; however, creative people are seldom financial wizards. The problem with places like Dollar Tree and Big Lots is that if you don’t buy it when you see it, you won’t find it when you want it later. If you buy it now and you don’t use it later, it was a buck, get over it.
I have been active in ministering to children, teens and adults for 24 years. I have discovered puppets to be an amazing tool for reaching people of all ages. Puppets are animated, fun and engaging. They are a wonderful way to pull people into a conversation and hold their attention.
I have created this page to share with you the magic of puppetry in ministry and teaching. You can look forward to how-to articles, free resources, puppet scripts and more.
