• Group Games: in the biggest room we have we’ll do active games like relay races, dodge ball, and any other fun game that engages all the kids.
• Movie & Snack Room: In this room the kids will watch a 30 minute movie while pigging out on snacks.
• Video Game Room: This room will have all kinds of video games set up, enough so that every kid can play a game or at least won’t have to wait longer than one turn.
• Make-Your-Own-Movie Room: This room would have a video camera and a box full of props. Kids will have 30 minutes to make a movie that we’ll show at a later time.
• Scavenger Hunt activity: Kids race against the clock (30 minutes) to complete a scavenger hunt.
• Craft room: We’ll do a really cool craft that all the kids will like.
• Inflatable bounce and games room: I don’t think I have to explain this one.
• Whatever else kind of room you can think of.

With five or six rotations like this, this will keep things going until after midnight. At this point we may do a giant group game. In the past I’ve done a scavenger hunt/race that will literally wear the kids out. I’ve also done several games of sardines that the kids love and could play all night long.

Usually by 1:00 to 1:30, I’ll start getting the youngest kids ready to settle down for the night. We’ll let them get their sleeping bags and pillows all set up in the room they’ll be in and then gather all the youngest ones for a flashlight story (or glowstick story works well too). During this time, the older kids will continue with another activity. Eventually we’ll get the younger ones to settle down, pop in a DVD and turn the lights out. Most of the kids will be asleep in 20 minutes or less, but the rest can enjoy a movie. After the older kids wrap up their final activities (maybe more time on the bounces, video games or whatever) they’ll come in and settle down as well. We’ll turn out the lights for them and put a DVD on for them as well. By this time it’s close to 2:00 to 2:30.

By 6:30 AM, we start waking up the kids. They pack up, take their stuff to the lobby and go to the place they’ll eat breakfast. For breakfast they’ll eat fruit, cereal or maybe just pop tarts. Easy is good. While the kids are eating, fresh volunteer come in to clean. Since all the kids things are packed and in the lobby, my volunteers can clean the rooms and get everything ready for the weekend. I try to plan this so that parents are coming to pick up their kids right from breakfast so that I don’t have to program anything else for the morning when we’re all tired.

First of all, every minute of the lock-in must be scheduled. Your volunteers want a plan. They love a plan. The idea of being with all these kids all night scares them. They think in their heads, “what am I going to do with these kids all night?” However, when you give them their schedule which outlines a different activity to attend with their kids every thirty minutes, they can get excited about that. The kids don’t have to know the schedule. It can be an adventure for them, something new and crazy every thirty minutes.

Second of all, don’t do a lock-in without guidelines. Be very clear on your guidelines. I post the guidelines on the registration page for the lock-in. After they register, I include the guidelines in all their paperwork that parents have to sign. I train the volunteers in the guidelines so they know how to keep their kids in line and what to do if kids get out of hand. Last of all, I personally go over the guidelines with all the kids before the lock-in gets started. I make sure that they clearly understand what they can and cannot do and what will happen if they break guidelines. To most people, my consequences are pretty strict. However, we rarely have to enforce them becasue the kids know the guidelines and they stay in line. It’s more fun that way.

I found that it took me the most time to establish policies, guidelines and scheduled for that first lock-in. However, once it was done, preparing for the next lock-in was easy. I just tweak the schedule and adjust my guidelines if our activities warrant it. I was starting from scratch though. Now it’s easy to borrow from someone else and tweak it to make it your own. I’ll post all of my stuff later which you are free to take and use.

The ingredient is… FUN!

Okay, that sounds kinda obvious and cheesy, but I say it for a reason. I’ve seen a lot of church’s suck all the fun (or most of the fun) right out of an event like this. I’ll tell you what the fun-suckers tend to be.

1. Over spiritualizing the event. Just because your event is a church event doesn’t mean you need to program it into a VBS/Sunday School/Kids Church filled event. I’m not saying any of those things aren’t fun. I’m just challenging you to the idea that you can gather a group of kids at your church and not do ANYTHING overtly spiritual. I actually think that the quality of relationships built while having fun may be significantly more powerful than any kind of “lesson” you want to teach the kids. At most of my lock-ins we’ll say a prayer to open things up and we’ll pray before eating breakfast, but that’s in. It’s my belief that if the kids like the lock-in enough, they’ll be drawn in to engage where things are a little more spiritual.
2. Don’t play it safe. Be extreme! Think about things that kids LOVE to do and program the event around those things. Usually this involves being loud, partaking in sugary snacks and doing stuff they don’t get to do at home. I’m not advocating dangerous activities here, just do something different that what you do on Sunday. I like to tell people that we’re not just going to have fun at the lock-in, we’re going to have “stupid” fun. We’re going to get the kids as wired and riled up as possible. We’re going to feed them candy well past midnight (maybe even give them some for breakfast). We’re going to let them run and play until they drop. Most importantly, we’re not going to make anyone go to sleep. Yeah, you’ll get some parents to roll their eyes, but the kids are going to have so much fun, most of your parents are going to become true fans.

Here’s the thing. Fun isn’t really the ingredient. It’s the goal. In everything you do, “think fun!” Don’t be reasonable, “think fun!”

This scares many of you. Don’t worry, my lock-ins are not wild and crazy free-for-alls. Rather, they are well planned and highly structured. This way the kids still have fun, but they stay safe and it keeps things easy for my leaders. More on that tomorrow.

So why do I hate them? They’re so FREAKIN’ long! Now that I’m in my 30′s, it takes me a week to recover. By the time it’s over, I just want parents to not be late so I can go home and fall asleep on my couch. Yes, this is selfish, but it’s a perfectly acceptable reason to hate lock-ins.

Why do I love them? Because kids FREAKIN’ love them! When we announce that we’re doing a lock-in, about half the kids wet their pants with excitement. Almost every kids loves a sleep over and the idea of doing this at church is just extra cool. Throw in some amazing activities and you’ll have nearly uncontainable excitement.

Beyond that there are several other reasons I do lock-ins.

1. They provide a jump-start of excitement into your ministry. All kids can get into a routine. Sometimes our ministries can as well. Something fun like a lock-in can generate some excitement and energy around your ministry (if you’re depending solely on lock-ins and events to energize your ministry, there’s a bigger issue though).
2. They’re a great connection point for your kids. The average kid attends church 40 hours a year (I think the average kid at my church is much less). Connecting kids to other kids as well as kids to their leaders is a huge benefit to lock-ins. The 10-13 hours of the lock-in equals 25-50% of the time a small group leader might spend with that child all year. Doing an event like a lock-in at the start of a school year might be a great catalyst for relational growth/
3. They’re great for building teams. I treasure this time with my volunteers and leaders. You don’t really know a volunteer until you’ve seen them amped up on sugar at 3 AM. The fun conversations, games and times spent with your volunteers during the event and while the kids are sleeping is so valuable.
4. They’re great for recruiting new volunteers. Every time I do a lock-in I seem to grab a few new volunteers. Sometime it is that really protective parent who MUST come as a helper becasue they don’t want to part with their child for the night who ends up becoming a volunteer by the end of the night (it’s that connecting part and team building part that does it). I also have many parents get excited about being a part of something that their kids are so excited about.

Like I said, I have a love/hate relationship with lock-in (I really love them a lot more than I hate them). Whether at a big church or small church, I’ll plan one once a year. Check in tomorrow to see my recipe for lock-in success.

I’m going to include how we plan, what resources we use, how much they cost and everything else you might want to know. I’ve got a lot of information and I don’t think I’ve really blogged much about my lock-ins up to this point. So, if you’re interested in taking a peak behind the curtain, tune in to the posts this week about lock-ins.

Here’s the details:

• $20 a kid ($15 each additional sibling)
• 186 kids
• 45 pizzas
• 2 school busses

Because we offer a celebrate recovery program on Friday nights, we had to rent out a recreationfacility. Becasuse the facility doesn’t close until 8:00 PM, we couldn’t start our lock-in until 9:00 (the latest I’ve ever started a lock-in). Due to some poor planning on my part, it took a little over 45 minutes to get all the kids registered. Next year I’ll have three check-in stations instead of the one. Families coming in had to check-in (they pre-registered the week before) and then pay (we’re not yet set up to do online payment… soon. I’ve found that in the past, there are people who said they turned in an envelope which never turned up or that someone put the check in the offering. That’s more hassle than I need, so I make everyone pay there). They turn in their liability release form and then get a garbage sack for the luggage that will get sent back to the church on the uhaul truck.

While the kid were getting registered, we had kids playing in the double gym. There was a little bit of chaos as this time was a little more “free time” than I would have liked. Again, my fault. I really only had “just enough” leaders to handle the lock-in. Normally I would have an organized massive groups game going involving all the kids or I would have had a strong leader doing this. Truth be told, kids seem to do better with this organization and it doesn’t look quite as chaotic when parents are dropping the kids off. Next year I’ll make sure to get this part right.

I began by going over the rules and the consequences. I lay down the law pretty hard, ensuring that everyone knows what is and is not acceptable. It must have worked… we didn’t have any behavior issues. We then broke into 12 pre-assigned groups, double checked that every kids was where they were supposed to be and then started the rotations.

K-2nd grade got first dibs on the pools. They were about 30 minutes late getting there, but the kids wouldn’t really notice. The 3rd-5th graders started their rotations through the gyms and the snack room. Not 20 minutes into rotations and someone from my staff came running up to me to let me know that one of the kindergartners puked in the pool! YUCK! (My wife and I always make predictions on how many kids will throw up at the lock-in. There is always 2 or 3. But this was on a whole new level of gross. In the pool… and we hadn’t even given him any coke or pizza yet! ***See below for comment about this***

So, the younger kids sat out for 30 minutes while the lifeguards cleaned up the floating chunks (I couldn’t resist) and pour enough chlorine into the pool you could taste it in the air a mile away. No really, it was strong. Your eyes began to burn the second you walked into the swimming area. Later when I got in the pool for a while, my eyes were bloodshot within seconds. For the rest of the night, everything was a little cloudy… I think the chlorine burned my retinas.

When we switched swimming groups, we were back on schedule (this happened at midnight mind you). I was actually suprised at how quickly the k-2nd graders actually got out of the pool and changed again. I did help the leaders working with the K-2nd grade boys… since rounding them up is like herding cattle. Several boys decided to jump in the showers to rinse off… they didn’t think far enough down to think that having their belongings in the shower would be a bad thing. They’re kindergartners, it’s what they do.

After finding missing shoes, missing underwear, missing shirts and everything else, we finally got them out. There had to be about 20 K-2nd grade boys walking around with only one sock (The 3rd-5th graders were actually only a little better than this). The older kids swam for 2 hours and the younger ones went through their rotations. By about 1:45, we loaded the K-2nd graders on the busses, check them twice and sent them off to the church. The older kids got out of the pool, changed and finished off what was left of the snacks. It was 2:00 AM and they were hungry. We did some more group games in the gym and eventually loaded them on the busses by 3:15. The bus ride was fun, loud singing and funny jokes. I think the girl’s bus sang every Hannah Montana song out.

We got back to the church by 3:45 AM. There were a few sleeping bags missing (turns out a few K-2nd graders thought they were theirs), but we got everyone down, turned on a movie and withing 10 minutes, 90% were asleep. A few leaders slept, and a few of us entered the realm of slap-happiness for the remaining hours. We decided not to wake up the kids until 10 minutes before parents came (we were really tired and a feeling a little lazy). Parents came in, helped their kids get their stuff, grabbed a pop tart and went home. Beautiful. By 8:30, the last kid left and I was on my way home.

Yeah, there were a few changes I will make for next year. There are a few things that could have been done better. I’ve never bussed the kids or rented out a facility, but those two ventures couldn’t have been any more successful. It’s the most I’ve ever had to spend for a lock-in, but we still walked away with $1000 to $1500. Oh, and the kids and parents haven’t stopped talking about it. Cha-ching! Big success!

Only 11 months and three weeks till The Ultimate Lock-In 2008. I better get some sleep!

**** I found out later from a daugher of my Ministry Support Cordinator the reason for the puking. There was a lazy river connected to this poop (it was actually a really good one that pulled you along). On one bend was a circular pool you could enter that caught the current and when you got in it, the current swept you around this small circular pool. Well, this kid really enjoyed this little whirlpool and spun around and around and around and around… hence the need to share with everyone.

Risk is what prompted the writing of this post. Sometimes I do things in children’s ministry that isn’t expected… sometimes I wish I took more. The first time I ever held a lock-in, I didn’t make the kids lay down until 4:00 AM. I took the kids to a bowling ally and I had kindergartners glow-bowling at 12:30 AM. I think there’s nothing funnier than having a 6 year-old look at you with bright eyes and exclaim, “I’ve never been up this late before!” No one ever told me that I had to have the kids down by 11:00 PM. Heck, that’s when I usually start the scavenger hunt. I don’t even bring out the cokes and sugar until after midnight. Even after several years, some parents would look at me with horror that I would invite kindergartners to a lock-in. Three years ago I had over 350 kids at one lock-in, over 50 of them were kindergartners… and they loved it… only one threw up.

Here I am just four years later. Different church, same strange looks. This year there’s a twist though. Our church has Celebrate Recovery on Friday nights. Great ministry, I just don’t want to mix 7 years olds with recovery… know what I mean? So, I’ve rented out a recreation center. Gyms, party rooms and one amazing pool. Lazy river, huge slide and all the works. We can’t get in until 9:00 PM, so the younger kids start swimming at 10:00 PM, the oder ones at midnight. Then because we have to be out of the recreation center by 6:00 AM, I’m transporting the kids back to the church via school buses. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much excitement from the kids for a lock-in, but I’ve gotten more looks than ever.

Is this too big of a risk? I know, swimming after 10:00 and even midnight is really late. Yeah, I know that there are drunks on the road after midnight. Sure, there is a risk, but is it that much more risky than swimming in the lake water front, doing the huge zip-line or climbing the massive rock wall at camp? It seems that the greater the fun, the greater the risk, I just feel that you have to manage that risk… get the most fun without doing something stupid. We’re not going to do Chinese Fire-Drills at the red-lights… although that would be huge fun(trust me, I just got nervous chills just thinking about that)! I figured this event is a calculated risk. Nothing is more valuable to me than the safety of these kids… I feel the weight of that responsibilities. But we’re certainly not going to sit in a padded room all night or watch 12 hours of Veggie Tales.

I know there are other areas I may need to risk more. I’ve had a very successful run at Venture Quest (what we call our Vacation Bible School). For 4 years at my previous church, we saw 40% growth every year (over 600 kids my last year). The last two years at my current church I’ve seen 100% growth (up to 600 kids again). Earlier this year one of the children’s pastors at another campus challenged the way I did Venture Quest. I got really defensive. I said, “I’ve got a very successful plan and procedure for this event, trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Hmmmmm. I regret my words. Although you can’t argue with my experience, did I just become the parent with the strange look? Lord, I hope not. Maybe it’s time to re-invent Venture Quest… I still have two months.

Well, only 4 more days until the Ultimate Lock-In. I’ll let you know if the risk was worth it. Apparently the parents of 200 kids think it is. We’ll see….