Junior Mennonite Youth Lock-In Activity

This past Friday night, I was one of the adults at the Junior Mennonite Youth Lock-In activity at my home church. The activity began at 7:00 p.m. with the youth playing touch football in our gym. Some of the other games we played included a variant combination of football and basketball, crab soccer, and a game in which two teams of youth competed to get the most Lifesaver candies without being spotted and identified by their sponsors.

The Lifesaver game was played in the church auditorium with the lights out but with the sponsors using a powerful flashlight to spot the players and identify them. The youth had to start at the back of the auditorium, get to the platform where the Lifesavers were scattered, and take the Lifesavers one at a time to the back of the auditorium without being identified through the whole process. If they were identified, they had to go to the back of the auditorium and begin again without the Lifesaver. To avoid being identified the youth got creative in the use of and exchanging of coats and sweatshirts. Some also formed a relay chain to minimize the chance of being seen and just scooted the candy from person to person while they remained under the benches. There was also a scoring pattern set up giving different values to the different colors of the Lifesavers with one color being a negative value. However the players were not told the values of the different colors until the game was completed.

Interspersed with the games, we had a devotional time and a prayer walk time within the church building with different stations focusing on world needs, congregational needs, church leadership needs, and local community needs. And before heading to sleep around 2:30 a.m. in the gym, we all watched Veggie Tales' "Lord of the Beans". The kids were great and participated actively in both the fun and the serious activities.