Christmas Icebreakers and Games

Looking for a last minute Christmas icebreaker or game for your group this week?

Check out the following:

Christmas Icebreaker Questions such as "What Christmas tradition means most to you?" or "What is your favorite Christmas Carol?"
“Find Someone Who…” Game-- for example, find someone in your group who has seen a live reindeer.
The Wright Family Christmas gift exchange
Christmas Riddle Game with answers
Christmas Scattergories Game Card

Enjoy!

change: the Baby. Part II

Continuing the momentum of last week, this week we will talk about how something may seem to be our end, and turn out for our salvation.

Joseph was faced with decisions and realities that were based on questionable circumstances outside his control. Some of us can relate. Others of us create a mess with our own poor choices. yet God has the unique ability to turn every single set of circumstances into into beauty, given the time and trust to do so.

You may want to share communion with your group this week as you strive to discuss the deep disappointments and darkness that may follow people into your living rooms this week. Jesus came to turn despair into hope- but first we have to hand him the pieces.

Additionally, you may want to take time to read as a group the Christmas story and just talk about it. You would be surprised to find out how many Christians and non-Christians alike have never actually read the Christmas story in the Bible, due to over-familiarity or it always feeling like seasonal reading that gets read in December by the pastor.

Matthew 1:18-2:23

Luke 2:1-40

Thaw

What's something you have learned or come to understand this Christmas season that you didn't realize before?

What's something you feel like you have done to work toward building "your wall"? One brick that you have put in place?

How can the group help you set the first brick?

Leader note: Yes, this is accountability that so many of us desire but don't know how to ask for! Don't let any almost-decisions fall away with time!

What something about the message Sunday that stuck with you?

What has it made you think differently?

Read

• Revelation 21:1-5
  
• Thoughts?
  
• How does this resonate with your view of what God is going to do in the future, and how does it run contrary to what you thought was coming?

Leader note: keep in mind that the word for "new" here is kainos in Greek, which is not neos like "never existed prior". This is about refreshing something that already existed, but had worn out and needed REnovation and REdeeming. this matter in the sense of God making good and beautiful out of the worn and broken.

• Have you ever taken a craft or project that a child seemingly ruined and turned it into something good? If yes, what does it require of you to be able to do this?
  

Leader note: looking for words like creativity, and knowledge of greater options than the child could conceive of. Your wisdom and ability took what the child thought was ruined and re-spun it into something beyond her imagination!

• How does this principle apply to those who call God "Father"? 
  
• How does it apply when you can see how it could be redeemed?
  

Read

• 1 Peter 2:11-12
  
• Thoughts?

• Why does Peter call for deeds in response to other's accusations?
  
• Why is this harder to do than well formed arguments about faith?

• Think of that friend or family member that doesn't understand your journey of faith- perhaps they're even hostile. Would you think a sustained life of inspired living change their perspective? Why or why not? 
  
• How would this change you?

• What's an example of something that you thought was going to be the end of you somehow, that God got you through?

• What's an example of something you question whether or not God will be able to keep you moving through it to see it through to redemption?
  

Leader note: Take some time in prayer at the end, inviting members to tell of what it is that they think has served as an anchor in their journey of faith. What is it they feel is unforgivable, irredeemable, too broken? What is it that is so disappointing that they don't feel as though there is anything good that could come from it. Perhaps, during communion, you celebrate a God that isn't offended by our inability to see how He can make goodness come of it all. Invite Him to, over the course of weeks, months and years, to blow our minds with His ability to make all things new. Then, as a group, commit to live such good lives in front of the pagans that though they have some nasty things to say about our previous way of life, they will eventually be forced to recognize that change has indeed come.

change: the Baby. Part I

This series is about God's plan for transforming the world. Transforming humanity's hearts. Transforming our relationships and futures and reinterpreting our pasts. God looked at all He made, and wanted to change it for good, forever. So, He impregnated a seemingly obscure teenage peasant girl in 1st century Palestine, saving her and all creation through the child's death and resurrection 33 years later. Christmas isn't just a celebration of Jesus' birthday, but a reminder of how God tackled our deepest need for change.

This week is about making big decisions by first making the small ones. You may look through this study first to best decide which parts are most suitable for your group. Be sure and get to the last part of the discussion with James 4:17 and the 52-week challenge. As we build an atmosphere of accountability (which is a secondary benefit to loving relationships!) we want to make sure that we give our members a chance to be stretched.

Thaw

• What are some family Christmas traditions you grew up with?
  
• What is your most memorable Christmas?

• What made the biggest impact on you from the message on Sunday?
  
• Do you feel like God spoke about something specific to you through it?

Read

• Nehemiah 1:1-4
  
• First thoughts?
  
• What's news that you have gotten in your life that completely overwhelmed you when you first heard it?
  
• What's the value of "mourning, fasting and praying" as a first response?
  

Read 

• Nehemiah 2:17
  
• Thoughts?
  

Leader note: You may want to help the group discover that when you hear someone say, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire..." it feels like they are getting ready to rally support to rebuild it all. It doesn't seem like the next statement would be inspiring and hopeful if it only pertained to rebuilding one wall. Yet, Nehemiah feels this saves them from disgrace.

• What's the first thing you would have rebuilt? Why?

Leader note: The significance of the wall is about the identity of Israel, which had been largely lost by falling into babylonian and then Persian rule. These walls were many meters thick, and towered over the heads of onlookers. This was an obvious symbol of strength and security, both terms important to having any sort of national identity.

Read 

• Nehemiah 2:19, 4:1-3, 6:2-4, 6:9
  
• Thoughts?

Discuss

• How do you handle constant negativity in the face of something that's overwhelming to start with? 
  
• Are you ever that voice of criticism? What does it mean to be a voice of encouragement, even when you think someone else's decision is unrealistic?
  
• When you are paralyzed by the size of a decision that needs made or a step that needs taken, and the only voices you're hearing are of doubt and criticism, how do you remain tuned into God's voice?

Read 

• James 4:17
• Is there anything in your heart that you feel like God has been asking you to become, do, say or just generally dive into that you have felt completely overwhelmed by? Will you share what it is?

• How can the group help you start with just a couple bricks?

Apply!

• Nehemiah 6:15-16
  
• The wall was done is 52 days, which blew the minds of everyone watching, and pointed to a tremendous faith in God. This next year has 52 weeks. Write down what you feel like your "Wall" should look like in a year, impossible as it may seem to you know, and commit that to God. Your wall may be something to begin. Something to become. Something you have sensed God calling you toward but you have been to scared, overwhelmed or even lazy to move into it. It may be something you've always wanted to quit or remove from your life, but you can't imagine the difficulty or the consequences and so you just push it off to address another time. Take ahold of a brick this week, look to the members of your group for support and encouragement and accountability- to God for strength, and begin building. 
  

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

A Crosspointe decorating "party" is taking place this Wednesday (12/3) and Thursday (12/4). If you know of anyone in your group that is free during the day and would enjoy this type of activity, please forward this information to them. They can call Mara at 469-9111 x 227 or email her at mgroegler@crosspointe.org for more details.
Thanks so much!

While Shepherds Watch their Flocks Part One

Hello leaders/shepherds...

I hope you have had a chance to crack open the shepherding books that were distributed to all the LifeGroup Leaders. As a community of leaders, we will be referencing the book and its themes throughout the year as a way of growing and nurturing our own souls, as well as equipping ourselves to better lead environments where our group members can be cared for and nurtured. As we dive into this theme more deeply, you are each encouraged to give feedback based on your experiences, past and present, that will add to our collective growth in this critical area of caring for God's children.

If you haven't yet read Chapter 1, make sure you take 8 or 9 minutes this week to do so. You may want to read the introduction to the book as well, though we're going to dive in starting with the first chapter. 

__________________________________________

Author Tim Laniak describes the desert wilderness in a way that helps shed some light on the scriptures. As important a metaphor as the desert is throughout the Bible, we often can't feel the weight of it because our lives are so disconnected from that way of life.

"Only after settling into [the wilderness'] unhurried rhythm will you recognize its subtle, continuous changes."

Page 21

In terms of leading groups, it's important for us leaders to recognize that the people we lead default to avoiding the desert. Most of us leaders do the same. Our culture operates on the premise that pain is to be avoided as a bad thing. Though much pain can and should be avoided, I wonder often we beg God for spiritual maturity while flat refusing to step one foot into the discomfort of the wilderness.

"Our lives can become a wilderness when experiences expose our frail and tenuous existence. Episodes of bewilderment, abandonment, and inner terror reveal our soul's restless cravings and fundamental neediness. In the wilderness we can lose our bearings. Or regain them".

Page  25

Christmas is a great time for exercising our capacity for avoiding discomfort. Shopping, stressing, planning, worrying, decorating and continuous motion are the real holiday traditions for many of the people in our groups. The last thing we would want to do is actually turn all that off, wander out into the desert, and see if we can find the Baby Prince of Peace. As group leaders, however, we have to reflect on not only the need for this in the lives of people who are pursuing Jesus, but that it may only happen in the context of the groups we're leading. What other opportunities do some (most?) of our group members have? 

If groups are about life-change, and the desert wilderness is one of the main change-agents God uses in those who turn to Him....how do we create wilderness environments (shy of meeting in Arizona...) as a group? 

How do we create a hunger for the desert? 

How do we create a thirst for desperate thirst?

Maybe you have experienced things in group world, whether in an official church group or just in the context of a few friends recognizing that spiritual growth happens together, intentionally. Please share those experiences with the rest of us. And let's look at the "Christmas season" as a chance for us to not only celebrate the Son of God coming to earth, but also for His followers coming with Him into the wilderness to pray, awaken and grow.

We'll dive into Chapter 2 next week.

Steve