This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news
Puppets for Christ
Jon Coen of Lancaster, Ohio (right), has some “Neato Blacklight Ideas” for Christian puppeteers. That’s the name of the class he taught at Eastern Mennonite University on Tuesday as part of the Fellowship for Christian Puppeteers’ national conference. More than 100 fellowship members attended the five-day conference at EMU.Photo by Pete Marovich
by Heather Bowser, Daily News-Record
Nina Gionti, 12, slowly poked her needle through a white furry-looking fabric.
About 30 stitches later, a hairy, cotton-stuffed ball emerged in her hands. The sphere, she says, would soon become the right cheek of a cat puppet.
"Little kids listen better to Bible stories when you use puppets," explained Nina, a member of the Fellowship for Christian Puppeteers. "They’ll need to know [the stories] someday because it will help them, and puppets make it easy to pay attention."
Nina, her family, and more than 100 of the 600 registered members of the national organization attended the group’s annual conference held at Eastern Mennonite University this week.
The five-day conference, fellowship officials say, is geared toward polishing, expanding and perfecting the various Christian puppeteer ministry programs from around the United States.
Members like Nina learn how to make inexpensive puppets, and also attend classes on black light puppetry, dancing puppets, shadow puppets, balloon puppets and even sign language puppetry.
"My arm used to hurt when I first started," said Nina, who says she and her brothers are involved in a puppetry program at her United Methodist church in Pennsylvania. "Now, I’m getting pretty good at it."
Times, They Are A-Changin’
Puppetry isn’t what it used to be, says Gary Gramlich, 52, the fellowship’s president and conference director.
"Twenty or 30 years ago, when the Muppets first came out, you only needed to master one kind of puppetry," Gramlich said. "Now, it’s another story. You need a wide range of styles and types to hold people’s attention and reach a wide range of [audience members]."
To keep up with the change, the fellowship holds the training conferences to modernize the Bible-based skits and musical performances, he said.
"Puppeteers now will often incorporate dance, sign language and other things like magic or clowns into their ministry programs," Gramlich said.
What They Learned
This week’s conference includes a wide range of instruction packaged in 78 different classes, according to the conference schedule.
One class teaches puppeteers how to best use a blue screen. The blue screen technology allows any background imaginable to be superimposed behind the puppets.
"With a blue screen, ‘reporter’ puppets can pretend to give the news about Jesus live from Jerusalem," Gramlich said.
In one workshop on Tuesday, students learned the tricks of orchestrating an entire Bible show using black lights. Another class taught puppeteers to tell stories using cutout shadow puppets on an overhead projector.
"Puppetry is a cheerful way to catch people’s attention about the gospel," said Alice Heatwole, of Waynesboro, who plans to become a full-time missionary puppeteer by 2008. "Bringing people to the Lord can be so much fun."
