Icebreaker Games for a Women's Ministry

When planning an evening gathering or weekend retreat for women in your church, plan a few icebreaker games to ensure the event runs smoothly. Icebreaker games get women talking and help break the silence among newcomers. Encourage women to play along by awarding Biblical bookmarks and pocket-size Bibles to game winners. With a few game ideas and some inexpensive supplies, you have everything you need to plan games for a women’s ministry group.

Break the ice with entertaining purse games. Divide the women into two teams. Give each group a list of scavenger items that the women can find in their purses. For example, include such as a ticket stub, a receipt, a picture of a grandchild or niece, a roll of candy, a comb, a piece of gum, dental floss and a gift card. Set a timer for three minutes. The team who finds the most items on their scavenger list wins the game. For a variation, have the women sit with their purse in their lap. Call out the items and the woman who can pull the item out of her purse first earns a point. At the end of the game, the woman with the most points wins the game.

Read the characteristics of a Proverbs 31 woman to the group -- meaning her virtues as either a mother, wife, homemaker or neighbor. Have the women sit in a circle and select one person to go first. She must start the activity by saying “I am a Proverbs 31 woman because _____.” She can say things such as, “I keep my self physically fit, work hard and I know how to sew.” Set a two-minute time limit and allow each woman to talk for two minutes. After each woman talks, award prizes to the best, funniest and most creative answers. If you have a large group of women, divide the women into groups. Have each group decide on the best answers to share with the other women in the ministry.

Divide the women into groups of three of four. Tell the women they must come up with four similarities that they are share. Encourage the women to dig deeper than hair color, gender and shoe size to discover unexpected similarities. For example, the women could say, “We have all been married the same number of years” or “We all have at least one brother and one sister.” The first team to come up with four similarities wins the game. Have everyone finish the game and have each team share their similarities with the entire group.

Give each woman a blank bingo card and have her fill in the squares with phrases such as, “owns a cat,” “drives a red car,” “enjoys basketball” and “has a daughter and a son.” After all the women have the squares filled, they must go around the room to find other women who meet the descriptions in the squares. If someone finds a woman who meets a certain description, that woman must sign that respective square. The first woman to get a row of squares (vertically, horizontally or diagonally) marked off wins the game. For added fun, have the women keep mingling to try to fill their bingo card.