I've never heard of worship puppets either, but I'm going to go waaayyyy out on a limb and guess that they're mainly present in your more liberal congregations ;)
Worship puppets, Missouri Conference, UCC.
I find these quite alarming, myself. Vaguely reminiscent of Babylonians.
![](http://www.missouriconferenceucc.org/special%20events/puppets.gif)