What does your choice of biscuit say to your group about how you’re feeling towards them?
1. The Chocolate Hob Nob
King of biscuits, height of dunking luxe: give these to your small group and they’ll know for sure that you really are trying to love them as you love yourself. A plate of these and a cuppa, and it’s sure to be a cracking evening together.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Loving
2. The Chocolate Digestive
Once dunked these can just be sucked down: handy if you’ve left your teeth out this evening or if you mistakenly take a large bite just as the group moves into a time of prayer or silent reflection.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Empathic
3. Border Classic Sharing Pack
The perfect example of sacrificial love for your group: you’re willing to lay down your wallet and also your own desire for the last Divinely Chocolatey Cookie. Well done, good and faithful servant. Might be a good idea to buy a second pack in for when the group’s gone home.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Self-Sacrificing
4. Jaffa Cakes
A great conversation starter: pop them on a plate, place them on a coffee table between your group members and wait for the inevitable question: Are they a biscuit or a cake? If things get heated, you could always switch to this evening’s bible study instead.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Sociable
5. Ginger Nuts
Don’t you like your group? Why would you do this to them? Consider taking a break from small group leadership for a term, something has clearly gone very wrong.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Resentful
6. Any kind of calorie-controlled ‘healthy alternative’ biscuit
This sends a message of conditional love and possible judgement on your group, frankly, and it’s not one you should be giving out as a pastoral carer.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Judgemental
7. Twix
You’re confusing everyone now: is this teatime? Should they have been here earlier for the sandwiches? Does this mean your children won’t have anything in their packed lunch boxes for tomorrow? Your group will be far too preoccupied with all these thoughts to focus on anything else you say for the rest of the evening. Best avoided.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Mysterious
8. Pink Wafer Biscuits
Beware the wafer biscuit! Its mouth-drying properties are a sure inhibitor to any fruitful discussion you may wish to encourage. Don’t offer unless you have a hosepipe handy to refresh partakers, and possibly a St John’s Ambulance representative ready to administer the Heimlich manoeuvre on any members for whom the dryness proves hazardous to the airwaves.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Risk Taking
9. Supermarket-own Rich Tea Biscuits
The most direct method in which to tell your group you have reached the end of your energy levels and will be stepping down from running things next term.
LEADERSHIP STYLE: Knackered
10. Wagon Wheels
Now you’ve gone too far.
