icebreaker

The Bible has many wonderful promises to equip us to do our assigned tasks for the Kingdom (e.g., “Perform signs and wonders,"  “that you will do even greater things,” Mark 16:17–18, and John 14:12–14, etc.). We do not seek out glory and power for ourselves, but miracles can accompany disciples as they go out into the world and interact. These can be very powerful tools in evangelism. You can easily crash and burn as well!  Don’t let yourself be the free goat (I'll expain later on).  

This is a simple kit you can download and use. The kit complements the previous article titled: Icebreaker #6a: Chat over a cup of coffee.

We offered a free beverage or drink if they would stop and share their story with us. We then offered a snack to go with the drink if they took a short survey.

The survey was just six questions about sharing Jesus without fear or argument. Actually, sometimes we add other preamble questions that are topical at the time.

We specifically designed this icebreaking exercise to facilitate "cold witnessing" with stranger

We specifically designed this icebreaking exercise to facilitate "cold witnessing" with strangers. We discovered that cold witnessing is a last resort because witnessing to someone with whom you already have a relationship is much more effective. We call this primary type of witnessing "oikos mining." This activity is especially beneficial when interacting with a group rather than working one-on-one. A real challenge sometimes. It seems especially good with pre-teenage and teenage boys or young men.

This is a well-liked discussion starter. This will turn any conversation on the temporal (earthly) domain into a discussion about the eternal realm. If you think it is acceptable for that particular conversation, give it a try.

• “If God could do a miracle today for you or your family, what would it look like?”
  or
• "What would it look like if God performed a miracle for you or your family today?"

(You can search for "icebreaker" to see additional examples.)

Communist dictator Joseph Stalin is credited with the quote, "The death of one is a tragedy. The death of a million is just a statistic."

A long time ago Dave M shared this concept of how to explain the gospel simply. Since then it has been tweaked and reformed often to suit the target audience.

Here is the classic “3x Circles Gospel Presentation” but with a more complete explanation than usual.

You can get what you need and ditch the rest.

For example instead of a full explanation of what baptism is you could just say that “you need to get washed clean” or similar.

What are the 5 big questions you can ask anyone?

“How did we get here?

Why are we here?

Where are we going?

Do you have any answers to any of those questions? 

Why do you think people find the bible so interesting?”

Dave M. has a wonderful (free) question that he sometimes uses to break the ice when witnessing. If someone says to him “Look I don’t know about this God stuff. I think that I’ll just live my life and have some fun. I’ll get right with God at the end before I die and go to heaven.”

Dave can ask them two questions to get them thinking about God right now. (You can use these questions with or without the Living Waters “Million Dollar/Pound Note” tract)