Guidelines
- An icebreaker must be appropriate for the group. If it’s too childish, people will not feel comfortable. If it’s too threatening, people will draw back.
- Make it clear that everybody is expected to participate.
- Some icebreakers can be used many times.
- Be alert for a person in crisis as the icebreaker is shared.
- Icebreakers become shorter and less important as the group becomes tightly knit over the course of the cell cycle. You might spend 1/2 the time on an ice breaker the first two meetings, but you only need to spend 10 or 15 minutes after a few months.
The Name Game
Source : Unknown
Comments : This one is useful whenever there are new people who don’t know everyone else’s names (especially during the first meeting).
Description :
Everyone should be seated in a circle or oval.
- The leader starts by stating his or her name.
- The next person to the right (or left) repeats the first person’s name and then his or her own.
- The third person repeats the first two names and then his or her own.
- The game continues moving around the circle with each person repeating in order the names of all of the preceding people and ending with his or her own. The game ends when the “naming” has gone full circle.
This game involves two competing advantages. The first few people only have a few names to remember. The last few people have a lot of names to remember, but they benefit from having heard the repetition of all of the names by the ones who went before them.
Quaker Questions
Source: Quakers?
Comments: Use in the first session, when people don’t know each other at all.
Description:
Between the ages of 7 and 12…
- Where did you live? How many brothers and sisters did you have?
- What kind of transportation did your family use?
- Who was the person you felt closest to?
- When did God become more than a word to you?
Icebreaker Links
Chit Chat
Pick some questions from the following list:
Comments: In a group of 10 people, each question should take about 5 minutes.
Description:
- What was the happiest moment of your life?
- Tell us about your first date?
- What is the greatest regret of your life?
- The hardest thing I have ever done…
- The greatest compliment I ever received.
- Let me tell you about my best earthly friend…
- What room in your house do you like best?
- What is the one thing you want to accomplish next week?
- Where did you feel warmest and safest as a child?
- If you had a time machine that would work only once, what point in the future or in history would you visit?
- When was the last time you did something for the first time?
- Which of the following restrictions could you best tolerate: leaving the country permanently, or never leaving the state in which you now live?
- At a meal, your friends start belittling a common friend. What do you do?
- If you could take a pill that would enable you to live until you reach 1000 years, would you do it? Why?
- When you do something stupid, how much does it bother you to have other people notice it and laugh?
- Would you like to know the exact date of your death?
- If you could change two things about the way you were raised, what would they be? If you came from a divorced family, how did it affect you?
- Who is your favorite relative? Why?
- What is your