Lock-in

A few weeks ago I led my first lock-in with the youth group of CrossPoint Churches. I honestly wasn't sure how it would go, especially since I was the only chaperone who would be there the whole time! What do you do in a lock-in? I reflected back on ones I went to when I was a teenager, and hoped that this night wouldn't be as crazy. The kids came around 8pm. After an icebreaker and setting the rules for the night, I had them put their cell phones on a bin and we kept them there the whole night-surprisingly most the kids actually thought it was a great idea! I planned on staying up all night, and they were welcome to but I gave them the speech about discerning whether to do so considering their commitments the next day, health, etc. The last time I remember boasting about how late I stayed up I was in middle school. Somewhere in high school I became overcommitted enough to treasure every minute of sleep I could get and was content to let people win the “game” of staying up the longest.
When you aren't doing assignments or preparing for exams, all-nighters can be fun so I made sure I had plenty of activities planned and was curious to try them out with the group. We didn't have time for them all. After a few hours of games, snacks and sundaes, “Follow the Guard” was the chosen favorite activity. Probably the funniest moment for me that night was around 1am when I asked if they wanted to watch a movie and they quickly yelled “No! We'll fall asleep!” I liked the honesty.
I had been up since 6:30am Friday and around 3am Saturday I was glad to see that most of the kids had fallen asleep already. I had chosen not to have any caffeine so I wasn't sure how I'd last. Apples to Apples and other small games kept the few remaining kids entertained and I was entertained watching them. They fought off “long blinks” and claimed they were merely “resting their eyes” for minutes at a time:) The night had been cold and clear, which made for a wondeful sunrise at Green Lake, so I brought them down around 7am. They started making pancakes when they returned, which was hilarious to watch. I made some scrambled eggs and prepared fruit and drinks. We ate around 8:00, or rather grazed. After so much sugar from junk food the night prior, some people had upset stomachs. We had way too many pancakes. People were just awake enough to help me clean, but not awake enough to argue about it-which was perfect. Everything was cleaned and put away by 9:30, leaving time for some to flop back on the floor and sleep. We had survived our first lock-in, but unlike when I was a teenager, I couldn't go home and sleep the rest of the day...
I had some other work to do that day, errands to run and a party to prepare for at my place-probably not the smartest decision after an all-nighter. Around 4pm I was fading quickly and crashed for about 2 hours before preparing the barbeque. I didn't have a lot of social energy, so I was relieved that only 10 were in our house at one time through the night. The party was over at 1am, I went to sleep at 1:30 and was up at 9:00, so thankfully I had Monday morning free to finally catch up on sleep. Was the lock-in worth it? Yes, but I won't make a habit of it-I love sleep too much.