It seems that the hour and a half Sprouts meeting often leaves us wanting more. One of our solutions at First United Methodist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, is to have lock-ins. This gives us more time to share and bond as a group. It is very beneficial to have a lock-in early on in your program so that everyone can get to know one another better.

At our most recent lock-in, we focused on helping the kids and leaders to feel more comfortable and confident with the acts of devotion and acts of kindness clauses of our covenant.

To focus on the kindness aspect, we had tthe children get into small groups and act out a kindness situation. Then the group members told everyone about the act of kindness they had acted out. This exercise was helpful for everyone because we had one group that needed help understanding that acts of kindness, as we understand them, are random. In other words, we do them as God gives us opportunities throughout the day and week.

We did several activities that focused on acts of devotion. One was a hunt throughout the church. Clues were hidden throughout the church building. Each clue led the groups to different rooms where they were to pray different types of prayers in different prayer positions. This exercise was a review of the ACTS + I that they learned last year (A = Adoration, C = Confession, T = Thanksgiving, S = Supplication, and I = Intercession.). After the hunt for clues and praying in the church, the kids went on a Prayer Experience throughout our town. We went to ten different locations and prayed in more than six different ways. For example:

• We went to city hall and prayed for our leaders and the upcoming election.
• We went to the fire station and prayed for the men and women who protect us.
• We went to a home and prayed for families and those people who don't have families.

As we visited these different places in our community, the Sprouts decided which types of prayer they wanted to pray. They prayed sentence prayers, songs, symbol prayers, leader prayers, and others.

Finally, we returned to the church where the kids memorized some Scriptures. To help them learn and remember passages of Scripture, we had the kids play our own version of "Capture the Flag, Scripture Style." We turned the lights off, gave the children small flashlights, and had them find their way through the church to the safe location. The leaders hid (with flashlights of their own) in various places (which changed continuously) around the building. If an adult caught the kids in the light of her or his flashlight, they had to recite one of the memorized Scripture verses before continuing on their journey. The game was a lot of fun for everyone and a great way to help the kids memorize some Scriptures.

Although you can do some of these activities during the regular Sprouts time, it is fun to link them all together. We find that lock-ins are a great way to go deeper, have fun, and build community for the kids and their leaders.

Cay Barton is Director of Children's Ministries at First United Methodist Church, Hendersonville, Tennessee. Cay served as a consultant for Sprouts: Covenant Discipleship With Children, recently published by Discipleship Resources.

Posted 11-22-02


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