Great Questions for Hearing Group Members' Personal Stories

Many groups ask each group member to take an evening and share their personal journey. So … what might be a good format or a list of questions to give them to help them to do that? Below you’ll find a series of questions that might be helpful.

 

HISTORY:

Where have you lived in your lifetime? How old were you when you lived in each of those places? Why did you move each time?
If you attended college and/or graduate school, where did you attend and what degrees did you get (or work on)?
What jobs have you had in the past?
What is your favorite sports team? When did you become passionate about that team?
What are your hobbies? On a scale of 1 to 10, how passionate are you about each of them?
If you were choosing a book to read just for the fun of it, what would the theme of the book be?

PARENTS:
Where were you born and how long did you live there?
What did your parents do?
What were your parents like? Describe what they were passionate about, what they did for a living, their mindset concerning religion, the church and Christianity, etc …
What are the three most important principles and/or abilities your parents instilled in/taught you? How did they go about doing that?
What was your relationship like with your parents in childhood, the teen years, at present?
What is your relationship like with each of your parents now?

SIBLINGS:
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Where did you fall in the sibling order?
What is your favorite memory of you and your siblings together?
What is one memory you wish you could forget when it comes to you and your sibling/siblings?
What is your relationship like with each of your siblings today?

DREAMS:
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
What did you study to do?
What are you doing today?
What do you hope to do with your life before it ends?

FAITH:
Where did your faith journey begin?
Who has been the most influential person in your faith journey? Where did you meet them? What do they believe you know for sure you’ve embraced?
If you have, when did you become a follower of Christ? What prompted you to consider becoming a disciple of Jesus?
How is your life different since you’ve become a Christian? If you’re not a Christian, what belief system are you holding to and what draws you to that ideology?
How would you describe how you feel about the church?

Please know I’ve created this with many one- or two-word responses. I’m hoping this will promote group members to ask follow-up questions as well as being easy for the “non-talkers” to share. These are the key relationships in life’s journey (I didn’t go back to grandparents simply because that’s a whole can of worms that can be really complex). By the time someone takes an evening or 30 minutes or so to share, the group should know them fairly well, and each person in the group will most likely find a point that connects them to the person sharing.