“If you could have dinner with one person, past or present, whom would you choose?”

“What is one of your favorite hymns or worship songs? Why?”

Planning Intergenerational Ministry
Here at Building Faith, we’ve written a lot about intergenerational ministry. The concept is simple: get people of multiple ages and life stages together for formation.

Intergenerational ministry takes careful planning. That’s because it is often a new experience for people, and folks don’t always know what to do. As leaders, we can help “grease the wheels” with clear instructions. For example, we posted a way to split people up to have multiple ages sitting together at tables: How to Create Mixed Seating at Intergenerational Formation Events.

But what about conversation starters? Regardless of the program you have planned (activity, meal, study) it helps to start things off with a good question. Finding a good question is harder than we thought – the question must be interesting and answerable for ALL ages.  Here are 12 questions to get you started; they can be answered by participants of almost any age.

12 Questions to Get Intergenerational Groups Talking

• If you could describe your ideal day, what would it be like?
• If you could take lessons in anything, what would you learn?
• If you could have dinner with one person, past or present, whom would you choose?
• If your house caught fire and, after all people and pets were safe, you had the chance to save one item, what would you grab?
• When during the day do you feel closest to God? Why?
• If you had $100,000 to spend on others, how would you use it?
• Can you think of a time when you helped someone? How did you feel?
• What is one of your favorite hymns or worship songs? Why?
• What is one of your favorite Bible passages, or Bible stories? Why?
• Have you ever given something up for Lent? How did it go?
• What are the qualities of a really good friend?
• What is one thing you wish you knew how to cook?

Many of these questions were found in “Faithtalk Cards” published by Vibrant Faith, and “Propellers” published by Search Institute.