Lock-In!

February 10-11, 2017

An exciting time for the Grades 1-5 children at Mableton First Baptist is the annual winter Lock-In when they spend the night at the church for games and some inspiration and Bible study. The final count of children was 46 and there were about 8 youth who helped plus 14 adults.

The first game after checkin at 6pm was the "rock-paper-scissors" game where they started with 7 clothespins and tried to win as many as possible. Some got quite a collection of clothespins.

Next was a game of Samauri with long foam pool floats as swords.

The elimination rounds had reduced the number to four finalists, and there were some spirited battles.

We had a pizza supper and then gathered in the youth room for a Bible study on building up treasures in heaven. Lana Ebert led the Bible study and was enthusiastic as the overall leader of the entire Lock-in.

Then we were divided into groups for a cellphone scavenger game. This was my team including youth leader Robby Wade.

An example of the things we were required to find and photograph was Amazing Grace in a hymnbook. We had to photograph the object with all the children who were in the group.

We celebrate with Kim Krebs' group as the overall winners of the scavenger hunt.

The big event of the evening was the game of Sardines, where one group hides somewhere in the darkened church and the others search for them with flashlights. If you discovered the hiders, you quietly joined them, so that every group found them, you were packed like "sardines" into the hiding place. This group was led by Tony Mode and Lori Pulliam with Madison Ebert as youth leader.

After about four rounds of Sardines, we settled the boys in the Music Suite and the girls in the Depot to watch a movie and then settle in for the night.

The morning started with a pancake breakfast prepared by Johnny Huffman and Billy Ridgway with help from the other adults.

While the group awaited their pancakes, Lana gives final instructions for the morning activities

The final game was a game of dodgeball where you had to sit if you got hit. Those are some cheerful-looking casualties!

The kids really seemed to enjoy all the games, and were sad to see the Lock-in come to a close.

For us who are leaders in Awana and the other children's programs, this fun time was a great opportunity to get to know the children better and to build relationships with them. It helped me to get to know some of the 2nd graders in our Awana group better. When I delivered something to the Depot on Sunday morning, I was surprised at the warmth of greeting from the children I had been with on Friday night and Saturday morning.