Lock In's and Clinical Insanity?

We just ran our kick-off lock in for junior high and it was insane! Which leads me to my thought: is running a lock in merely clinical insanity writ large or is it really worthwhile? I have an answer based on what I saw, but still had to ask. At our lock-in it brought out our regular crowd and most of my junior high leadership team, but it also brought out 8 brand new faces (people who have never been associated with our program before!). Thinking about that, this evening allowed me to meet and spend a LOT of time with students who have never been here before and most of whom don't have a church background or church home! So, with that in mind, I say that doing this insanity (and the $100 we spent on food, etc.) was well worth it.

Which leads me to the second point: when we do things on purpose, it leads to results most of the time. We planned this lock-in to reach out. The whole purpose of the lock-in was to allow us to reach out to and bring in students who haven't ever been a part of something like this. The purpose was evangelism on the sly. By doing something crazy and fun we brought them in and invited them to join us as we journey together the rest of the year (the idea being that if they have this much fun it is so worth it to come the rest of the time!). Does that make the 12+ hours of no sleep worth it? Heck yeah. When I get the chance to meet and make bridges to students lives, it leads to the result we want. If the fun draws them in, we can then work at drawing them into deeper levels and hopefully to the Jesus we try and model.

So, is running a lock-in for junior high students totally insane or does it lead to results when done for the right reason on purpose? That question seems obvious to me, but I'd love to know what others think because I know my own ideas aren't always the best. Bridge to faith or gimmick? Worthwhile or total insanity? Is the lack of sleep really worth it? Those are the questions, the answers seem obvious to me...

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