When you run an outreach program, or any program where Christians will bring their non-Christian friends, you want to create an atmosphere that's non-threatening. You want to make the non-Christians feel welcome and comfortable so they will listen and come back. A short, humorous skit is one way you can accomplish this.

A good ice breaker skit has two basic requirements: it must move fast, and make people laugh. You generally don't want a long drawn out skit to open things up. If it gets too long or boring, the audience will be checking their watches the rest of the night.

Where can you find good ice breakers? Many of our best ice breakers have been developed out of improvisation exercises. Other sources to consider are skit books, comedy albums, movies, and TV shows such as Saturday Night Live. Routines taken from these secular sources may need editing, but it's something the audience will recognize, it's all but guaranteed to please the audience.

The following skits is popular ice breakers from the Dramamaniacs repertoire. I mentioned earlier "The Emotion Skit" as a good acting exercise. I think you'll find it makes a very entertaining ice breaker as well. Ask the audience to suggest three emotions for your actors to use. Then perform the skit four times: once with no emotion, the next three times using the emotions chosen by the audience. The Dramamaniacs have done everything from Happy, Sad, and Angry to Backwards, Sloshy, and Foreign.

You may also write your own variations on the skit. I stole this particular script from one of my actors. He stole it from another drama person who probably stole it from somewhere else.

One other tip on doing "The Emotion Skit." When you perform for an audience, have the Son change the number of jars of mayonnaise every time you do it. The first time through, it's twelve jars. The second may be a hundred, the third, a thousand, and the last fourteen million, nine hundred sixty thousand, two hundred and seventy seven. Or something like that.

Some of the more popular Righteous Insanity ice breakers are "The Dream Doctor", "The Answer is Six", "Wherever's", "The Man-ipulator", and "Lee Press On Chest Hair." These and other ice breaker skits are available to order from the Righteous Insanity Skits Page.

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