Ice Breaker

One of the things we value within community is fun. In the midst of all the pressures life throws at us, it is our ability to laugh, play and celebrate together that reminds us we serve a good, loving, and resurrected Lord who stands above it all. So, we want to take the first few minutes of our time together to play, have fun, and celebrate the fact that we belong to Jesus.

Today’s Ice Breaker: Electric Pulse

Materials Needed:

• A coin

How to Play:

1. Form two teams using whatever method you prefer. Have the two teams form lines facing each other.
2. Instruct the teams to hold hands forming two long human chains.
3. A referee stands at the other end of the lines.
4. Tell everyone in the lines to close their eyes and look downward.
5. The referee then flips a coin and quietly shows it to the first players on each team.
6. If the coin is heads, the two people at the front of the lines squeeze the hand of the next person in line as quickly as possible.
7. Each person, whose hand is squeezed, squeezes the person’s hand next to him or her.
8. The goal is to be the team with the “electric pulse” passing all away along the line first.
9. When the last person’s hand is squeezed they yell out, “Heads.” The team that does so first wins a point.
10. If the first person in line accidentally squeezes the next person’s hand when the coin lands on tails, he/she cannot say anything. If the “pulse” makes it way to the end and the last person yells out, “Heads” then that person loses a point. The first team to 10 points wins.

Community Groups Vision

If you have time and feel this would help the new people in your community group better understand what you are trying to accomplish as a group then take 2 minutes to show this video.

Today’s Discussion

This week we continue our series The Story of the Bible. Many of us may know some Bible stories, but we may not actually know the story of the Bible. Over the next couple of months, we will be walking through the overarching story of Scripture by looking at the 9 main acts of the story: Creation, Catastrophe, Calling, Covenant, Crown, Corruption, Captivity, Christ, Cross, Church, and Consummation. Our goal is to come away with a better understanding what the Bible, and history, are really all about, and the impact that has on our lives as a people.

Discussion Questions

What does community mean to you?

Genesis 2:18

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Why do you think being in a community is something God desires for us?

What would you say is the greatest benefit of being part of a community?

What would you say is the greatest risk, or fear, to being part of a community?

Dever & Dunlap, The Compelling Community

“When Christians unite around something other than the gospel, they create community that would likely exist even if God didn’t. As a modern-day tower of Babel, that community glorifies their strength instead of God’s.”

What would you say is the difference between a community centered on God’s Kingdom and a community centered on something else?

What is the difference in motivations between those two types of community?

What does the community miss from you if you choose to isolate?

What do you miss from the community if you choose to isolate?

Closing Thought

How does the Gospel provide that unconditional love required to be the community God wants us to be?