Recruiting puppeteers is a very important part of a Puppet Ministry. It takes some serious thought to find people who are willing to act goofy!
In order to find reliable and suitable puppeteers for your Puppet Ministry, you have to start by having a clear mission statement for the ministry. What is your goal? Will this ministry consist of weekly or monthly performances? Will it be geared for preschool or upper elementary audiences, or perhaps both? Will you write your own skits or buy them? Answering these questions will help you determine what character traits you will be looking for in puppeteers and help you decide what kind of time committment you need from the puppeteers. Now you will need to advertise for puppeteers and see who transpires.
Here are some others points to consider when recruiting puppeteers:
What age should puppeteers be? Some churches have a Puppet Ministry led by older elementary aged children, while some use teens in the church, and still others have an all adult team of puppeteers. Some churches even combine all age groups. Knowing your goals for the ministry will help you decide what age your puppeteers should be. If you are in a large church, you may have more flexibility to choose an age group; whereas, a smaller church may have to make due with a intermingled age group. As long as your volunteers are willing and committed, it really does not matter. It's what works best for the ministry.
Who makes a good puppeteer? Basically anyone makes a good puppeteer, if they are willing to be. As long as your volunteers are willing to be teachable and stay committed to the ministry that is all you need. Your best bet for finding good puppeteers is seeing that they understand there is more to this ministry than just putting on shows, but that the message they are giving to the audience is more important than anything else. The ministry is for the glory of God, and not just to make children laugh.
Should tryouts be necessary? Tryouts are not really necessary for puppeteers. If you have people that are willing to commit to rehearsal times, learn the ropes, and have a heart for leading children in God's Word, then they can be taught to be a successful puppeteer. When you first announce that you are looking for volunteers for the Puppet Ministry team, you may get a good response and, in that case, you may have the opportunity to screen individuals that you think would be good for the team. If you get a low response of interested individuals, you may have to work with who you have, and that is fine, too. Again, the most important part of choosing puppeteers is that they understand this is a ministry before anything else.
How many people does it take to have a successful ministry? You want enough people to run a smooth performance, but not so many people that someone might lose interest in the ministry because they do not have enough to do. There is a definite balance. It helps to have your year planned out with the scripts you will want to perform ahead of time, so you can get an idea of how many parts there are in each script and average out how many puppeteers you will need. If you are new to Puppet Ministry, then start with smaller scripts and use about five or six puppeteers, and then work your way up to bigger skits with more puppeteers being added at a later time. It's easier to add, then to let someone go.
Read about Puppet Care and Storage here!
