“Lock in?  What’s that?” I said to my youth minister 30 years ago.

“We used to do that at Fort Walton Beach.  We stay at the church building and stay up all night playing games.”

And so the Lock in was born (at least at my church).  I was intually confused due to the nomenclature thinking that they actually locked the doors to the building where no one could leave.  In reality folks could leave with parent’s permission.

This article takes a good stand on why lock-in are counter productive.  I’d tend to agree now.

Way back in my 20s I was under the delusion that I just had to be somewhere on New Years Eve for it to be worthwhile.  The church lock-in, which always needed volunteers, was a low hanging fruit.  Now I look back and understand that lock ins are counter productive.

It is EXHAUSTING.  Sure it’s fun for a bound 3-4 hours, but around 3AM you’re just sitting around waiting for the sunrise so you can go home.

As the article points out, nothing good comes after 3AM.  You have to police these young people, making sure couples don’t go off alone to a classroom.  To my knowledge we never had this problem.  But it sends wrong messages to young people in that it’s ok to fall asleep with your significant other in a church pew, just not each other’s bed.

There might be a short devotional at the beginning of the lock in…or maybe around midnight.  But overall the night was devoted to movies and sports.  So the spiritual aspect was lacking. It was more or less an activity to keep young people safe and off the streets.

Consequentially you do have youth group members who are less involved spiritually to attend the lock-in, and bring friends.  As one commentator pointed out, there is an opportunity to sow the seed…and sometimes it takes a while to see growth.  But somehow lock ins seem so far from spiritual aspect it makes it difficult to justify it.

My lock in days are over, thankfully.  I sympathize with those adults who chaperone, but I’m glad I chose to be at home on NYE.