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 favorite memory time spent, as a child, with your father? Your mother?
- Who did God use to bring you to the point where you knew you needed Jesus?
- If you could change places with a Bible character, who would you choose? Why?
- What is your favorite book of the Bible? Why?
- If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
- What is your favorite movie or TV show?
- Who has had the greatest influence on your life since we last gathered?
- What was the best thing that happened to you this past week?
- Recall a time when you failed recently
- Name someone you admire who had to overcome great obstacles to get where they are now.
- What do you value most in a human relationship? In your relationship with Christ? Your parents?
- How do you react when you aren’t thanked for going out of your way for someone?
- What is your favorite time of day?
- Singles: The girl/boy I want to marry.
- Couples: What caused me to marry my spouse.
- My greatest disappointment…
- The gift I will never forget (apart from my conversion)…
- What was the most important event in your life this past week?
- If you could chose to go anywhere in the world for 3 days, where would you go, and why?
- If you could choose to meet anyone who ever lived in America, who would that be, and why would you like to meet him/her?
- If you could choose to live anywhere in the world, where would you live, and why?
- What gift (spiritual, emotional, mental, etc.) do you believe you are bringing to this meeting? (In other words, what do you think you are bringing that will-or may-contribute to the encouragement of others- or the building-up of the “church”?)
- Describe a significant experience in your life that changed your value system completely.
- What are some of your goals for the year ahead?
- Who are your parents, what did they do and what would you like to change about them?
- If I could choose my career over again I would …
- What is your position in your family – first second etc. What would you have liked to swap about this position?
- If you became the leader of any country in the world, which would it be and why?
- Share the best and worst experience of your week
- If you could take a free 2 week trip to any place in the world where would it be and why?
- If you could talk to any one person now living, who would it be and why?
- Give every one a piece of paper and ask them to draw a picture of their jobs or whatever they do on a daily basis. Explain your sketches.
- Ask each person to say why he or she is glad to be in a cell group tonight.
- Briefly describe some strong and some weak points in your relationship with your eldest child or your parents-in-law or your husband.
- Inform everyone that they have just been given $1,000,000. Let each share how they would use their newly gained fortune.
- Do you have a nickname and if so what is it?
- What nicknames do you have for your husband and children?
- Is there an era in time that you would have liked to have lived in, if so, why?
- Has the cell group been a help to you? Spend time talking about it and thanking each other.
- Tell the cell group 3 things you appreciate about your family and 3 ways in which you find them difficult at times.
- What is the best thing that has ever happened in my family? …my cell group? …the world?
- One thing I would really like to see happen at the moment in my family? … my church? … my cell group? … the world?
- Who is the best friend you have at this point in your life?
- Have you had an answered prayer recently – share the story
- What is your occupation? What do you enjoy about it?
- Who has been the greatest influence on your Christian life and why?
- What book, movie, video have you seen/read and why would you recommend it?
- What do you think delights God above everything else