Once on a residential, there was a large number of year 13 guys and very few year 12s, so we made two groups, then split them, but we split them by maturity (without telling them and yes, we may have been completely wrong). Everyone came back from that residential talking about how much fun they had in those groups - I had so many people tell me about the amount of laughter - but they had also made big steps forward in their faith. 

​

Here's an adaptation of that idea: If you've got sufficient young people and leaders, why not get your youth to choose their own small group - going deep or looking on? They can choose. 

​

Sara Parsons, Youth Pastor at St. Aldate's, Oxford, UK came up with four groups for her young people to choose: On the beach, paddling, snorkelling or scuba diving. Over time, you may need to encourage some people to move from snorkelling to scuba diving, say, who don't quite feel ready for it, but groups like these may be helpful to find where people think they are in terms of faith, enabling leaders to talk at the right level for them, helping them to go deeper, without being concealed by others in the group who are already mature. If you've got a large youth team, you'll probably already be able to think of which leader could lead each group.