Yet again, I am reminded of this truth.

Friday night, we let twenty-two wired middle schoolers invade the youth room with their enthusiasm and laughter. After a couple hours of introductions, setting rules, eating snacks, and hanging out, we loaded up our church bus and two vehicles and drove out to this amazing place called Fun Depot. It’s just that - a warehouse-like building with everything from miniature golf to a climbing wall to laser tag. The owners of Fun Depot are Christians, so they provide this once-a-quarter 11:30 pm to 2:30 am time specifically for youth groups in the area for only $10 per kid. It truly is a great thing for us youth ministers. Thank you, Fun Depot owners (and college-age workers that late at night!)

Our lock-in went smoothly, no major issues. We do abide by a strict policy whereby only a teenager we’ve met before can stay the night with us. (Good tip here: Even though you would like to trust every kid that waltzes into your ministry, you never know what you’re getting into. Each kid brings a new dynamic to the table. When you have an unruly kid messing up things for the rest of the group, tension is inevitable, for both you and your other kids. Or maybe that kid has some serious emotional unstability. A lock-in for your first encounter with him or her is not the most appropriate time to minister to that teen. We’ve found that meeting them first either at one of our meetings or church services or even out and about makes you and this new kid more comfortable.) So, back to Friday night. We had two visitors that we had never met come out with two of our own. Our teens  knew our policy somewhere in the back of their head, even if they had forgotten. So, we knew we had to keep the policy to be fair. We compromised a little, though, on behalf of the new kids (but not, in the end, very favorably on the parent’s behalf). We let them come to Fun Depot with us, but they had to go home afterwards. We didn’t get back to the church until 3:30 am. One parent did actually come out to pick his daughter and her visitor up. He seemed to understand. David offered to drive the other kid out to his parent’s house where is Mom had stayed up for him since they couldn’t make it out. The kids were unphased, at first a little dissapointed, but because they had so much fun at Fun Depot, they couldn’t complain.

Kids can be quite reasonable at times.

Except not about sleep.