Hey, welcome to another episode of Kidman Backstage. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and I wanted to let you know that in this episode, we had some technical difficulties, and approximately the first eight minutes of audio are quite bad. At around the eight-minute mark, it does improve, but in keeping with transparency on our, quote, disasters, I thought it best to go ahead and post this episode instead of redoing it. We'll be back next week with better audio, but I hope you enjoy today's episode. Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by brother Steve Arger. How are we going? Good. Good afternoon. It's going good. Thank you. It's going good. It's a little hot back here. It is. We had the doors closed so they didn't really make it backstage. Minor disaster. Right. Well, what are we talking about today? Talking about split personalities. Split personalities. Yeah. So I chose you for this. I don't know what that says about you. So There is a term that's often used in the church world where we talk about we wear many hats. We've talked about it on the podcast before. In just some brief cursory research, I looked to Brother Google and found that this phrase comes from the mid-1900s when professions were really identifiable by the hats that they wore. They wore specific hats. That's true. In my old when i used to do construction i mean kind of in construction but when i was on site you had to wear hard hats and it's funny because some people you would you would almost like you wouldn't recognize them without their hard hat sure you got so used to seeing them like that yeah and so um so that's kind of still like that i guess with the identifiability um but anyway so i know that our church is definitely not unique in this but many of us in some school wear many different hats in our church and then even in our Sunday school we often wear several hats just within Sunday school oh yes like different roles and because we do a casting sheet sometimes you'll have eight roles we have multiple roles on a day yeah and then sometimes we literally wear different hats as we have on the table for those watching on video there you go sometimes I'm a king yeah and then other days You're a pirate. I've been a pirate. Yes. There we go. That's true. But so here's the kind of the premise of today's podcast is we can have an impact and we can make an impression on these kids when we invest in the character we're portraying. And so today, that's what we're going to talk about is keeping that delineation between the characters and the various staff roles that we have to do. And so you said you picked me for this podcast. You know, I've been involved in Sunday school for about 12 years here. And then, you know, before in the other church we came from. But wearing different hats, doing prayer requests or plan of salvation. I mean, the kids know me as the prayer guy or the man with a plan. I love it. I got interrupted for a second. Last Sunday, you were like, um, you had actually been out a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks. And so you were like, come up there like you typically do. Does anybody know what time it is? And everybody was like, yeah, it's time for prayer, you know, or whatever. And you're like, it's 1104. Yeah. Kind of throw them a curveball. Yeah. That was awesome. But you know, we, we all have to do that as staff. Um, you know, whether it's, uh, the praise time. I mean, that's one hat I haven't worn yet, and maybe you won't put me in that hat, but everybody wears, you know, does multiple things. And coming up with our August services, you know, Mr. Bishop is being reborn and Kroger at the same time. So I play an evil guy and I play a guy that's right and straight, you know, so that's the other part of wearing multiple hats and putting, you know, you said putting the time and effort into, to being that character, you know, we've, we've had kids that have seen our performance. I don't want to say performances, but we are performing, seeing our plays in years past and they remember the character that you are. Oh yeah. Like even from, like we've mentioned it before, but like from other churches come up and they're like, Hey, yeah. Yeah. You know, so there's a little bit of ownership. You know, I think you said that earlier. We have to own the character that we are and live the character that we are. So the kids will buy off on, man, this is the real deal. Because that's what we want this to be, is real to them. You know, in not only the Bible lesson, but also in the theme that we're doing, too. So we all have to wear multiple hats, whether you're a good spy, bad spy. Yeah. And it helps the kids to relate to that. Sure. So that's one of the things I have in here is change it up. And so we, of course, the way that we do Sunday school, we've talked about it many, many times, but the way we do Sunday school is we dress up, you know, we have our costumes and we have, you know, full on. I mean, we act out the stories. so when you come out you know and sometimes it's easy to slip into especially like a lot of us do English accents it's easy to slip into that right you know also you're a Bible character you do an English accent and then we've poked fun at Miles for he was a male character William and he had this like Irish accent so now once in a while he'd be like a Bible character and he comes out in his Irish accent like a leprechaun Yeah. And so, um, so we had to change it up and, and really it's challenged, but it's fun when you have a lot of characters you got to do. Sure. It's kind of fun because you're, you're bouncing around and you're like, you know, like you said, you're a King and now you got to go be a pirate or whatever. And so, so that's some of the things, let's talk about that a little bit is how we kind of, um, change it up. Like, you know, uh, maybe you're going from like, okay, here's an example is you, you do prayer requests quite a bit. And so that is usually a staff role and it's not a character. Right. And so you are out there as brother order, student tie. And then it might be like five minutes later or less even. And here you are, you're Kroger. You're a bad, you're a bad guy. And all the kids are like, yeah, yeah. I, badge and scar and so we have to kind of change it up right sure our mindset um and i kind of i made a list like you change your costume your voice your accent your mannerisms you know so So why don't you talk about some of your favorite, like, bad guy characters? My all-time favorite bad guy character was Dallas Clay. Dallas Clay. In the Western theme that we did. It was a Western theme, yeah. Because you never got a really, got a good look at it. He was always in the shadows. Yeah. Kind of like our character Ruthless. Yeah. You know, just a flash in the pan and, you know. You never quite see him all the way. Yeah, the hearty evil laugh. But you could just tell. by his voice that he was a presence in the performance. So he was my favorite, I think. Yeah, yeah, that was good. Yeah, so we did the Western where we had a theme going, but also our Bible story was kind of cool because all the disciples were actually cowboys. Yes, that's right. So we did a highlight. I think it was a 16-week theme, and so obviously there's 12 disciples, but we spent more time on it. Peter, you know, and different ones. So, um, but yeah. And so then we had the theme and I don't really remember the whole thing, but I remember, yeah, Dallas Clay was the main big bad guy. And then of course we had the sheriff and all that. In fact, that was the theme where brother Joey Boggs, he's an evangelist now. He was the sheriff and he had to die. Yes. He had to die because, um, he was going on the event. Oh, right. Wow, that was a long time ago. Yeah, the show must go on, right? Yeah, they just wrote him out of the script. Yeah, we wrote him out of the script. And it was epic because he, remember, we had this like high platform. I think there was a slide on one side, but he fell off of it. And we had put some kind of padding or something where he could fall. It was scary to the kids. It was real. I think it was scary to Joey. Yeah, it was real to him. And that's what we try and do for him. That's why we do, I mean, it is fun and everything, but that's why, that's really the essence of why we do these characters and we invest so much in the different hats, you know, is because we're trying to get these kids to relate. And then when they remember that, it's not just that they remember, I mean, maybe sometimes it's just like they remember some epic story, but a lot of times it's, they remember and it feels so real, like, you know, especially the Bible stories, you know, and then the concept Right. Right. So, yeah. concept a lot better now. And it makes it, you know, we talked, I don't know, I talked a while back about not being abstract with kids, you know, because you lose them. And so when you are like literal and you have these examples, I mean, Jesus, you know, we talk about all the time, Jesus used examples. He did parables. And so when you have these examples, it makes it so real and it makes you think of the concept. And it's not just some abstract out there idea. It's like, Like, it's really literal. Yeah. This is how you do this, you know, because I remember in the story. Right. This is what happened. We want them to remember. Yeah. So, speaking of remember, my second bullet point is keeping track. So, it's important to remember what your character would do in the given situation. And so, this is kind of, you know, we probably take drama a little more serious than some Sunday schools, you know, we get into it and we we try to make it good you know we do a lot of funny stuff too but we try to make it good and invest in the character yeah and so kind of like the keeping track is is kind of like what we're poking fun at miles you know about don't don't do the wrong accent you know right but also it's like keeping track of like okay if I am let's just use the Western just since you brought it up I played Judas in the one of the weeks I played Judas and I had I had taped this little like goatee thing on and I had I had this like a black cowboy hat and just and so I tried to be and this is over the top Judas probably wasn't this way because I mean I think Judas backslid right he was a disciple at one point but anyway I was like really shifty you know I had a oh I had a wig that had like long stringy hair it was like straight kind of straight hair I have a picture of it somewhere but and so I was like shifty and you know I almost almost had a twitch you know like when I'd come out and maybe looking around my head you know like swiveling and so I was trying to make the kids not like me right away sure you know so I come out and kids already just have a bad feeling about this guy before they even know who he is and so that's where you keep track of your care And you try not to, a lot of times the kids do like the bad guy cause you know, it was just cool or whatever. And in fact, one time this was a problem inside of school. And I was like, I don't want the bad guy to be the cool guy. Right. Don't want him to be the hero. Yeah, exactly. And so, um, so sometimes we try to dumb him down a little bit or whatever. Yeah. So he's not quote unquote cool. Sure. Cause I, cause I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Dallas Clay said, I think so. I don't remember, but that's how most of our stories are. Yeah. You know, and we'll do different ones. Like Brother Keech is our classic bad guy. And so like the pirate theme that we did, you were the captain, Patch, that you were the captain of the pirates and you saw the light. And then what happened with him is he just got worse. Right. And at the end he loses. But usually, so we still had the element of forgiveness or comeback story there, but it was with you as Captain Patch. Right. So yeah, and then we've had different ones. We had... Oh, what's another? Oh, what did we do? I think the Roman soldier, Brother Santino. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was good. Yeah, that was a good one. Oh, man. What was his name? Verus. Yeah. Verus. The gladiator. Yeah. Oh, man. That was cool. Yeah. That was good. And that was funny because he was like a character. He wasn't even in Sunday school. No. He's not a Sunday school staff. Hasn't been in since. But we recruited him. And I remember him asking me. Did an amazing job. He did amazing. He asked me. He was kind of nervous. And we did it for August. Yeah, we did it for August service. It was a coliseum. And he was kind of nervous and he's like, do I, will I have to do lines? And he told me a story of some, like in school, which must have made quite an impression. Scared to death. Yeah, he did. I mean, he messed up his lines. And I was like, you don't have to do like any verbatim lines at all. And the little bit of lines you have to do is just, yeah, just be. Growling. And he's a big guy. Yeah, it was awesome. Good. And we had those costumes. That was like 10 years ago, I think. Oh, man. Yeah, it was 2015. Yeah, almost. So, yeah, nine years ago. Wow. That's crazy to think about. I want to do that one again. That's coming soon because we were just talking about it. I want to do that one again. Yeah. The Gladiators. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. All right. So, um, so yeah, keeping track of, of your character and what would your character do in the given situation? That's the other thing is like, um, you know, when we, we think of, uh, okay, like Daniel and lion's den, we've done that one several times. And so when we have, uh, we contrast like Daniel and the advisor. So often you're often the King Darius and, and you, uh, come all the advisors come in and And Daniel's with him because he's one of the advisors. And so they all come in and you promote Daniel. You're like, I'm going to promote somebody. And, of course, the advisors, they always – They're all high-fiving each other. Yeah, it's Adlib, but they're being those characters. They're being like there's self-focused and high-fiving and stuff. And then Daniel's kind of separated. Yeah, just being humble. Yeah, and we kind of picture that maybe that's how he was. And they just kind of don't like him anyway because he's – goody two shoes or whatever. And so then of course you promote him and, and, and, you know, makes, makes them all mad. And so, so they are, Daniel obviously is being a character and personifying what Daniel should be, but his part is kind of easier. Like he's just being quiet and humble. Like you said, but the, the officials and the advisors are, They are keeping track. In other words, they're like, okay, what would this character do? Oh, we're jealous. And they start talking amongst themselves. And it's all Adelaide. We don't have it scripted. I mean, sometimes it's hilarious what they come up with. Oh, sure. But they're just like, yeah, Daniel, whatever, you know. And then, of course, they conspire against him and, you know, send the note. I remember a long time ago, years ago, Brother Brian Critcher, when we did it and there was the notice. And now we do this like every time, but there was the notice and it was terrible. taped up on his, you know, quote unquote door on stage. So he comes home and he sees the King's notice, the edict, you know, don't, nobody can pray to any God or whatever. And he, he like reads it, he pulls off the door, he reads it and he's like, you know, and he wads it up and throws it away, throws it off to the side and goes and prays. And that stuck. It was awesome the first time. So now every time. That's how we do it. Yeah. Whoever plays Daniel, they just, it's like intuitive. It's like grab the note, throw it, away just toss it yeah and so so keeping track of that and then this is this is another thing and this is kind of just in acting a little bit and you know I know we're talking about split personalities we're talking about doing different characters but I have on here don't break the fourth wall and so this is a term used in theater the fourth wall and the idea is you you have the stage back Which is, you know, your one wall, and then you have the sides, two and three, and then the audience, in this case, the kids, are your fourth wall. And so, we typically, now there's exceptions to this, there's exceptions to this rule, but we typically, a character on stage is not addressing the kids directly. You know, and obviously, we do exceptions quite a bit. I mean, it just depends on what we're trying to do. trying to do because sometimes we do that to engage the kids like the bad guy might be trying to get ideas from the kids you know or something like I don't think I'm going to attack these guys what do you guys think no you know and so we will break that rule obviously but as a general rule especially if we have a group like in fact that's a probably a point to make is I think that most often when we break that fourth wall so to speak I think most often it is when it's just one actor Yeah, doing a monologue. Yeah. Yeah. And then he'll break that fourth wall and talk to the kids and engage the kids. Ask for their opinions on. Yeah. On what, like, you know, if the Solomon, you know, is going to slice the baby in half, you know. Yeah. You know, what should I do? What should I do? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Engage them. Kids will come up with all kinds of crazy ideas. But, you know, like you said, that gets them involved with. Yeah. Especially, you know, and that's sometimes as actors we have to discern that you know and break that fourth wall to get them and get them more engaged in the story that we're telling right yeah and we do we do a lot so much interactive stuff that it fits really well like we'll have people hide amongst the kids or they'll sit down with them in costume you know and then do a chase scene or something or if it's a bad guy the kids are like he's right here you know right right right if it's if it's a good guy they're trying to help hide it or something yeah and so we do engage in that way but then like if we're doing if you're doing a really cool scene or something that's maybe dramatic and it's supposed to be serious you know like I always reference the crucifixion for example then it works really well to not break that fourth wall yeah and the kids are enraptured in the scene that's happening you know it's unfolding And they're just like, wow. And it becomes, like we said earlier, real to them. So that's one of the things, I guess, maybe as a help to people to keep in mind. It just depends on what you are doing. And I would almost say that if you're in a smaller situation, like a classroom... And especially if you're making a change, if kids are used to you just teaching them and talking to them, maybe telling them stories, whatever, object lessons, those kind of things, if you could throw this in where you don't break the fourth wall and you become that character for a moment, it will kind of catch them off guard, so to speak. It'll kind of get their attention like, oh, wait, what's happening here? Sure. Especially if you can throw on a hat or a costume of some kind. Yeah. I talked about just recently on a podcast, Brother Chuck Mozingo, late Chuck Mozingo. Late great. Late great, Chuck Mozingo. When did he pass away? Five years, about five years ago. Wow. Yeah, we miss Brother Chuck Mozingo. But he, years ago, I mean a long time ago, he taught a Sunday school class. This is before, I was in Sunday school. Wow. Yeah, long time ago. easy now but he taught a class and it was a teenage class so it wasn't that you know right but he taught a teenage class and he taught on the story of when the disciples are wanting the crowd to be quiet and Jesus says if these are quiet then the rocks will cry out but he told it from the rocks perspective and he was the rock and he didn't have a costume or anything but he was doing it we were the fourth wall he was not addressing us he wasn't teaching us at least for the scene the quote unquote scene he was talking like he was kind of talking to himself like it was an audio almost and he was like I hope that they be quiet. I hope that they don't, I hope that they shut up so that I can cry out. Jesus, let them be quiet so I can cry out. It was so powerful. It was so good. Yeah. I mean, that's how powerful it was. That's been many, many years ago. I was probably 12 or 13. Yeah. And it made an impression on me. And so, so you can, and that was, I mean, probably a classroom of, I don't know, there might've been five. Okay. six of us in there. I mean, it was, it was a small classroom and he invested. Sure. He had that character, you know, he personified that rock and it just totally, totally made you, you know, invest into the story. And it was, it was powerful. I mean, like I said, it stuck with me all these years. And so, so yeah, if we can, if we can personify a character to the fullest, you know, fully in invest in it okay so the last thing I have in here is with it has to do with casting I called it casting for consistency that sounds like a podcast right there so you can cast characters a fit with staff roles and so What I have done in the past, and it doesn't always have to be this way, because like we're talking about, we're talking about split personality, and you can definitely be the yin and the yang. You can definitely be the both sides. But sometimes what I will do is I will cast, I will often do this when I'm casting for the theme. Let's say that you're the bad guy in the theme, you're Captain Patch or whatever, and then in the Bible story for that day, especially if you do something really bad as the theme character, then in the Bible story that day, I might have you play the bad guy also. And part of the reason is like the kids know, okay, that's Brother Warner. They know that. I mean, our costumes aren't that good. So they know. And so then what can happen is it keeps, I don't know, to me, like there's some consistency. And so it keeps that persona where they're like, oh, Oh, you bad guy, you know, or whatever. And so, um, sometimes we'll do that. And then like, sometimes the good guy is the, uh, the good guy in the Bible story and he's the good guy in the theme, you know? So I'll purposely cast it that way sometimes. And then the other thing is, is it's, this is something I discovered a long time ago is it's hard to so like we have some dunce characters that transcend themes. The biggest one to talk about is Sammy. So Brennan's character, Sammy is in all kinds of themes, you know, that we do. And so the kids love Sammy and, and Sammy's goofy and he's, he's, he's naughty sometimes, you know, he doesn't do right. He's clumsy, but he's got a good heart. The kids, kids like him, but, But Sammy... In that character, I mean, Brother Brennan can, but in that character, Sammy can't teach a lesson effectively because he's a dunce. Yes. And so that's another thing with casting for consistency is you don't want to... It's easy to do comedy. We talk about it all the time. It's really easy to be comical and to be the dunce. But if you have three dunces on stage, then you don't have an authority figure. And so you can... it can turn into chaos pretty quick because everybody's goofy. And so you, it's nice. And, and then what happens is sometimes the dance has to break character and, and get ready to sit down, sit down, sit down, you know, whatever. And so it's nice to have, and he doesn't have to be super serious or anything, but it's nice to have that authoritative figure that's, you know, some kind of a boss or whatever in the, in the theme skit or, you know, in the, um, maybe in the Bible story or whatever, you know? And so that's, that's just kind of an example of like, yeah, the dunce can't teach a lesson. So you gotta have that more serious guy. All right. Well, we are running out of time. You got, you got to get going to your, your, your other hat. My security hat. So let's just do a quick recap. Um, so we're talking about split personality. So change it up. So, uh, You're doing different costumes or different roles, then change your costume, change your voice, change your accent, change your mannerisms. Make it distinct. Yeah, exactly. Make it distinct. Make it distinctly different. Yes. And so much so that if, let's say, you don't have a costume, where the kids know, oh, he's different. He's somebody else. They know that it's a different person. And then keeping track, and this is kind of, I think, kind of with investment in the character you know is if you're invested in the character then you don't you don't have to keep track so to say so to speak you you just are being that character so you're doing you know I remember so we're not into Hollywood and movies and all of that but Rowan Atkinson I think is his name he's the guy that plays the Mr. Bean character he's a okay so he's a comedy guy guy and he's really funny all kinds of YouTube videos and he's an actor I think pretty renowned anyway I remember in an interview interview clip that I saw one time a long time ago they were talking about he can make people laugh without ever speaking because he does these crazy faces and motions and you totally know what he's thinking what he's doing just by how he acts but he at I might get this a little bit wrong, but he said something like this. He said, all I do is I think of what would a nine-year-old boy do. And, and he's, so he's personifying that, you know, and it's, it's hilarious and it's funny, but he is being that character. And that's another thing we've, we've talked about, but I, I, I remember, um, this is a years ago, I read this in a drama, um, like a theater book is about a director that stopped the performance in, in a practice and said, stop acting, stop acting, be the character. And so, um, Thank you. So if we are being the character, then we don't have to keep track anymore because we are just personifying that, what that character would do. Yeah. Brennan does that really good with Sammy, by the way. I mean, he's, yeah, he is, it's hilarious. And my granddaughter refers to him as Sammy. Yeah. Yeah. In church. No, that's brother Brennan. Yeah. All right. And then don't break the fourth wall. And that's kind of the same thing as you're investing in that character. You're just, you know, you're not addressing the kids directly. You're, you're acting and they let them invest in you and your character. in the story and then you can cast for consistency it's not always necessary but it's just an interesting thought you know and there are some things that I think don't work well and that's like the dunce can be very authoritative you know right right kind of thing so all right well we are out of time so I think we're gonna call that a wrap all right