Thursday, December 2, 2010

Lock-Ins Where We Weren't Locked In

Some of my favorite memories are from my time at church, in our youth group. In particular I loved being apart of the lock-ins. Staying up all night long, hanging out, playing games and munching on snacks, what teenager could ask for more?!

(This was much of our youth group, I was one of the youngest- in yellow, in front of the building we used most often for our youth group meetings. It actually burned down, though I can't remember which year- I think it was when I was 17 or 18. The roof had caught fire and it was bad enough the building became unusable- at the time I was in charge of our AWANA store also housed in that building. I remember going through everything and it reeked of smoke, we couldn't use any of it.)

One of my favorite games was a form of hide and seek. Though the concept of a lock-in is being locked inside the church, our church was actually four buildings spread out over the church grounds, so we usually just took it as being 'locked' into the church grounds. So in the dark night, we would have 1 person go out and hide somewhere- inside or out. Then we all go out in search of them. The first person to find them is officially the winner, but once they are found instead of announcing it, you would join them in hiding until pretty much everyone was hiding there. One time when we were playing, it was my friend, Coley's, turn to hide. He found a great spot because we were completely at a loss and eventually had to start searching for him for real- game officially over. As it turned out, he had fallen asleep where he was hidden!! From then on we only played in partners.
At another lock-in, when we were playing that same game but in partners, it was Steve and Joe's turn to hide (at least I think it was those- but really any of the guys in youth group would've had this exact idea!). On our church property there was a huge back lot where a new building was always planned to be built (as of now I still don't think it has happened yet!). The ground was very uneven. Mounds of earth here and there, between ditches. During our normal youth group time each Sunday evening, we would often play capture the flag up there. It was perfect for it. Well the lot is surrounded by woods. Well Steve and Joe went out to hide, and pretty soon we all went out, in pairs, to search for them. After not too long, we started hearing this loud crack, I mean really loud hard to ignore, and if I remember right, there was also a bright flash of some sort. It seemed to be coming from the back lot, so my friend Shannah who was my partner, and another pair of girls, Deanna and Emily, all went up to the back lot. Of course it was dark and the ground was uneven, so it was creepy back there, but we walked along the edges, though not getting too terribly close to the woods. We were talking about how they better not be back in the woods, because that would be out of bounds. And then all the sudden they jumped out from the trees (well, not so much jumped as, set off whatever toy they were using to make the loud noise and bright flash of light, and they yelled something from up in a tree right at the edge- in daylight they would've been completely visible), catching me and the other girls off guard as we screamed and jumped back- me unfortunately into a huge puddle! I wasn't very happy at the time, but I smile when I look back and think of it now.
Why can't adults have lock-ins and play games like that?!! I totally miss it!

5 comments:

  1. I added myself to follow your blog. You are more than welcome to visit mine and become a follower if you want to.

    God Bless You :-)

    ~Ron

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  2. We never had a lock-in but your post did bring back some memories of other youth outings/events. Our pastor did a haunted house one time and then another took us to another churches "haunted woods" ...that had to be the scariest thing I've ever done. Your hide and seek game is a good one. Our teens play underground church (Hide a bible and have Nazi's and Christians looking for it.) But the hide and seek would be good to add to their repetroire. : )

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  3. I'm a new follower & would love to have you visit my blog! Look forward to reading more posts!
    http://TheNilsensNest.blogspot.com
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  4. Hey Crystal - that was me and Hersch up in the tree. We were making the noise to get everybody close, since nobody was finding us.

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  5. nice post! thank you so much for sharing...God bless you...loves soraya

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Crystal