Olive Fleming Drane
Olive Fleming Drane is a Scottish theologian and Christian minister who is widely known for her use of clowning in the pulpit. As her clown characters Valentine and Barni she has traveled the world, and been featured in radio and TV programs in many countries. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she was educated in England and there she met her husband John Drane while they were both teenagers. She first studied theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and also has a Master of Theology degree from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. She currently works as a mission consultant to churches in the north-east of Scotland, but also continues a worldwide ministry of teaching and preaching. She is an adjunct professor in the School of Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, where she teaches courses on theology and the arts, as well as being a Fellow of St John's College, Durham, England. She has taught on the MA in emerging church at Cliff College, and also teaches on the MA in theology and ministry at Cranmer Hall, Durham.
Publications
Family Get Together: Planning All-Age Worship (Birmingham: Administry 1990)
Contributor, Janet Litherland (ed), Who’s Who and What’s New in Clown Ministry (Colorado Springs: Meriwether Press 1993)
‘Bible Readings’, in Setting the Agenda: the Report of the 1999 Church of England Conference on Evangelism (London: Church House Publishing 1999), pp. 11-19
New Start: All-age Ecumenical Litur¬gical Resources for Advent 2000 (London: CTBI 2000)
‘Breaking into Dynamic Ways of being Church’, in Breaking New Ground: the first Scottish Ecumenical Assembly (Dunblane: ACTS 2001), pp. 138-154
Being Creative with Forms of Worship (Sheffield: Administry, 2002), Administry How-To Guide 3/2
Clowns, Storytellers, Disciples (Oxford: BRF 2002; Minneapolis: Augsburg Press 2004)
co-authored with John Drane, Family Fortunes: faith-full caring for today's families (London: Darton Longman & Todd 2004)
Spirituality to Go: rituals and reflections for everyday living (London: Darton Longman & Todd 2006)
co-authored with John Drane, "Worship and Preaching", in Janet Wootton (ed), This is our Story: Free Church Women’s Ministry (Peterborough: Epworth Press 2007), pp. 50-67.
[With John Drane] ‘Children and Death’, in Anne Richards & Peter Privett (eds), Through the Eyes of a Child (London: Church House Publishing, forthcoming 2009)
Video
[With Peter Neilson], Towards Tomorrow: Exploring your Church’s Future (Church of Scotland Dept. of National Mission 1997)