January 13, 2003
THE MANY FACES of Darren Collins include comedian, juggler and puppeteer. In all his roles, the Texas Baptist evangelist seeks to make a colorful point about the love of God and the hope of faith through Jesus Christ.
Evangelist has a hand for puppets and mouth for comedy
___By Leann Callaway
___Special to the Standard
___WAXAHACHIE--Zany and outrageous only begin to describe Darren Collins.
___He is by no means a typical evangelist. What other evangelist would develop a website titled throwingup.com?
___Collins does get attention, however.
___There is a method to his madness, as he routinely turns the focus away from himself and onto Jesus Christ.
___As a Christian entertainer based in the Metroplex, Collins has built a ministry around his childhood interests of juggling, puppetry and comedy.
Evangelist Darren Collins ponders a new gag.
___Over the past five years, he has performed in 400 churches around the world, worked with dozens of mission organizations and has taught in international conferences. He has worked with Dallas Baptist Association and the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___"I was a goofy kid," he explained. "One day, I took my puppets to youth group to more readily distract my peers from the message and worship time. My youth pastor chose not to get angry, but instead he plugged me into a puppet ministry at age 12.
___"We took classes from Puppet Productions when they came to town, and seven years later, I was rolling through town teaching the same classes."
___Puppet Productions is a company that sells puppet products to churches nationwide and provides training for using puppets in ministry. In addition to Collins' other commitments, he also works full-time for Puppet Productions.
___Puppets are only one aspect of Collins' ministry, however. He puts down the puppets for his stand-up comedy routines.
___"Mostly, I use sight gags and one-liners," he explained. "I don't perform puppets in my routines since I am not a ventriloquist. I do a solo walk-around puppet entertainment thing that is designed to work as an impromptu meet-and-greet type show, like I did in a strolling puppet tent at the Billy Graham Crusade this year. That's pure fun."
___Collins is a man of many puppets--and many performance skills.
___"I perform for all ages at conferences, Sunday night services, children's crusades, senior citizens' banquets, teen camps and more," he said. "I really love to perform for the older groups, although it is natural for people to want to book an entertainer like me for kids. I always hear people say, 'Oh the kids just love it,' but more often than not, I see adults standing in the back of the room laughing much harder than any of the children."
___When he isn't performing, Collins teaches Sunday School at Park Meadows Baptist Church in Waxahachie and leads a Bible study for teenagers at his home. He also writes curriculum, drama and puppet skits and is currently working on a devotional book for teenagers. His latest book was an instructional guide titled "Throwing Up ... Gracefully," which teaches faith-sharing routines for jugglers.
___He's also involved in missions work throughout South America, as well as Thailand and Singapore.
___"I got involved in early high school with my church doing work projects in Mexico," he said. "I was looked down on by some of the guys for spending too much time playing with the kids. Now, I get flown all over the world to play with them. I love doing a show where people laugh really, really hard, and then they come up to me afterward to tell me that they were inspired or learned something."
___
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
