Our church recently gained two new members who are trained and experienced puppeteers and are interested in starting a puppet ministry at our church. I haven't seen much puppetry, but I'm excited by the idea. It seems a little hokey, but I can absolutely picture our minister bantering from the pulpit with a puppet at the lectern across the way; or at our Logos evenings; or at our Senior High Talent show.
At the same meeting a new committee member introduced our staff person to the majesty and glory of Microsoft Excel. The idea of doing our budgeting electronically (rather than on paper and having an admin key it into the computer) was thrilling to this other staff member.
It's amazing the gifts that we bring to the world.
Our church does a great "gifts assessment" survey to help you identify your gifts. When my wife and I joined the church, we took our assessment and filled out a form indicating which activities in the church we were interested in. Well, I was "interested in" nearly everything our church does, so I checked all the boxes. Our staff member in charge of welcoming new members luckily recognized my misinterpretation of the question before I was contacted by every single committee in the church.
And she has found wonderful ways for us to use our spiritual gifts, over the years! (I never saw myself as an adult Sunday School leader, but I love doing it.)
ReplyDeleteWhen my sister was involved in puppet ministry, it was more about rehearsed and staged shows than weekly repartee. For example, the skit at our family Christmas Eve service was often a puppet show. Kids young and older seemed to enjoy it. To my surprise, the voices and sound effects were usually supplied by a professional recording; the kids in the ministry just handled the puppets, kind of like lip syncing.