Thoughts of youth lock-ins bring out many conflicting feelings. Youth workers may feel profound terror, deep joy, anxiety, excitement, exhaustion, or preemptive heartburn.
For a long time, youth lock-ins were key components of my ministry. I usually scheduled two a year—New Year’s Eve and in late summer before school started. I even moved my wedding date from New Year’s Day to the Wednesday before. Why? I didn’t want to have to celebrate my anniversary “hungover” from youth lock-ins!
Every time, I went all-out for great youth lock-ins. We had bands, tons of pizza, went to different locations, and rented huge inflatable games. Youth lock-ins were always my biggest-attended events. They were huge in my youth ministry world. But no more.
5 Reasons I’ll Never Do Another Youth Lock-in
I’ve been converted from the ranks of lock-in-aholics. I will never again hold a youth lock-in. Here’s why:
1. Youth lock-ins don’t grow the Kingdom.
First up, I’ll admit that youth lock-ins are fun. They draw lots of students. But I never saw any long-term Kingdom impact. Having done probably 20+ lock-ins, I can’t say any students were changed as a result.
And I didn’t do just the fun stuff. I brought in speakers and bands and did devotions but saw no fruit. And while some students started attending youth group because of lock-ins, not many did. I wonder if I could have invested elsewhere for a better return.
2. They require lots of work and money.
Next I’ve spent untold hours planning youth lock-ins. It also costs a lot to buy food, rent special equipment, hire a band, pay for a speaker, etc. If you do something, you want to do it well. But in ministry, we have limited time and resources.
I look back and wish I had these time-sinks back so I could spend them on things that mattered. Yes, I got to build relationships with students. But I could have pursued much better avenues that didn’t cost so much time and money.
3. Nothing good happens after 3 a.m.
I have an idea. Let’s get a bunch of hormonal teenagers, hype them up on Mountain Dew, get them running around for several hours, then see what happens when this toxic stew hits the exhaustion stage. Nothing good happens after 3 a.m. at a lock-in.
I’ve caught students making out. One deacon’s daughter snuck out to smoke marijuana. A visiting student faked a seizure to get her boyfriend’s attention. An adult volunteer and students trashed a bathroom that no one was supposed to use by getting into a shaving cream fight. (And they didn’t tell me, so I only found out later when the cleaning lady had a fit.) A visiting student told me she “sees dead people” and saw demons in the church. Nothing good happens after 3 a.m.!
You might be thinking I just had bad experiences with youth lock-ins. But I’ve heard worse horror stories from ministry friends. Students having sex, students disappearing, volunteers getting into fights. Bad things tend to happen at lock-ins.
No matter how many adults you have, how well you’re organized, or the precautions you take… You exponentially increase the chance of something bad happening when a large group of sleep-deprived teens is locked into close quarters for a long time.
