Church Lock-In???

I was just wondering what you all thought about having a youth lock-in and if any of you all have ever done this? The youth in our church brought up the idea of having one. I was just wondering if this is considered an acceptable thing to have or how cautious we need to be if having one? Considering that it would be both boys and girls. By the way the reason for my concern is because me and my fiance' who happens to be the pastor and are young (20 and 22) and would be the ones that would be helping put on this event and was just wondering if that would be a problem because we are not married yet and how people would look at this? If we do this should we have more adults there as well???? Thanks.

Hey there sweet- I work in the children's church at my church and we have a lock-in every few months for the pre-teen and teen workers. Now, the children's pastors ARE married, but I don't really think that will affect you very much (it probably won't be a very big deal of concern). Usually what happens at ours is this: 8:00 PM everyone arrives. We play for a while and then we either worship and pray for a while or do some work in the childrens church like cleaning or whatever and then at approx. 12 or 1 in the middle of the ngiht we go to wal*mart. There we have a scavenger hunt. The childrens pastors wife makes a list of clues for items and we ahve a certain amount of time to find as many as we can. Afterward, we put all the items back where we got them but it's still a blast!! Then we go back to the church and do more stuff. Then, at 2:00 in the morning we go to denny's(cuz' they are like THE only people open so late haha). After that we have we sometimes play hide-n-seek in the dark at the church(our church is really big it seats like 3,000). After that we either worship or watch a movie or stuff. You see, teh idea is to keep them pretty busy with at least a couple organized activities-that will limit the opportunity for 'incidents'. Also, there are 15-30 teens who come to our lock-ins and our adult/student ratio is about equal to the amount of transportation we need. 1adult, 1car, 5 kids.(roughly) we may have more adults early on who leave whenever they get exhausted lol. But lock-in's are a great way to have fun, fellowship, but also get some work done wether it's spiritual or volunteer type for the church. All my suggestions work fur us but it really depends on the size of your group. ill be praying for ya!

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When I was a youth, we had plenty of lock-ins. We had them not only for the youth group, but also the choirs. Sometimes sleeping was actually required! If you are that worried about the boy and girl situation, if people are tired, assign a section for males and a section for females to sleep.

However, plan lots of activities. Play all kinds of games, have worship, have the kids cook their own breakfast for the morning, have the kids do the dishes, use each little thing as a way to get them to cooperate and get along with each other.

Most of the time, people do not sleep at lock-ins at all, so I'd not worry too much.

Stein Auf!
Bridget

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Church lock-ins can be a lot of fun. Make sure you have plenty plan for them to do games, food etc.... Also make sure you have enough leadership there to help each other for accountability both for the leadership and for the students. You might want to ask a couple of parents to help you out.
I have a lock-in at my church next weekend for 5th-6th grade girls lots of fun and no sleep.

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I agree with everyone, Lock-ins are awesome! It is a great way to have fun and to get closer as a group. My suggestion would be to keep everyone together as much as possible, that way you know if people are "missing". I don't think the marriage issue will be a major factor. Depending on how many youth attend, I would have more leadership there to help out. Hope u have fun!

Aimee!

I just got done chaperoning for a youth lock in and it was quite an experience. It lasted Friday night and Saturday night and then Sunday they got ready at the church for sunday school. 2 days is way to long I think, but it made them grow closer to each other and bring out unity in our group. We stayed in our church gym so there was plenty to do Volleyball, basketball, and they even played tag football. (of course the girls just watched). They also played hide and go seek, but you have to be really careful when u play that in the dark (if ya know what i mean) Saturday we went to our local BCM at our college and they played pool, pingpong and board games. We took them Bowling and miniture golf, which I think that they really enjoyed. The main key is to keep them busy and sleep well the night before cuz u arent getting any sleep. And yes Wal-Mart was a must.... I still dont get that idea... Why go to wal-mart at 2 in the morning and walk around. They said its a tradition so we let them go. A good idea is to let them help cook the meals. But the main thing is to keep them busy!!!

i agree with what everyone said. my church has a "retreat"every year thats lasts from friday at 6 untill sunday morning for church. usually we dance,(christian music) have LOTS of worship, sermons, sometimes special speakers, or testemonies. And we watch a movie that a youth leader makes every year that has alot of pictures that she took the previous year! its really cool. At my church we have a curfew at i think 12:30 and we get up at 8 or 7:30 for breakfast. we have catoring people help make the food. there is usually about 60 people at our retreats. the boys sleep downstairs and the girls sleep upstairs.

ok,


As a former youth pastor, I'm had limited success with lock-ins unless they are pooled between a few curches and we can go to a place other than our chuch--many churches got to gether to rent out the college recreation center for a lock-in. That worked.

I think what works better is a lock-out. If you are in a fairly good sized community, you can start by going to dinner, then a late movie, mightnight bowling, broomball at an icerink, then come back to the church around 2 or 3 for those who want to sleep or for organized games, recreation, movies, etc.

It's hard to keep activities going all night. The tride and true "capture the flag" or "sardines" games go for a while, but lock-ins, if done regularly, can become trite. If theres a central theme around the lock-in then it might work too or combine the 2.

Our church invited the organization "Worth the Wait" to come and do a siminar on abstinance for our youth group We made a lock-out/lock-in out of it. We had a cook-out and games at firstm then a session and worship, then the lock-out, then a session, then games and optional sleep. We went out for breakfast in the morning.

If you're in a smaller area, try a simpler version of these ideas. You may not be able your pastor to talk, then some games, then a talk, then an outing, then worship/music, end with more games or sleep. There are many ways to organize a lock-in. Be creative with it and kids will come.

Blessings.

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Man I remembered when we had our lockin we had some areas where it was hard to keep an eye on the kids ( teens) we locked the doors or rooms and kept the teens out of their but it was mostly game time or get together and hang around then worrying about what room is what.

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I think lock-ins are a great thing for kids to do. It's good to have "bring a friend night" and have them bring as many friends as possible. There are so many worse things for people my age to do on a friday night.

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