What is the PURPOSE of a Lock-In?

What is the PURPOSE of a lock-in? We’re talking about purpose a lot, so I thought I’d analyze lock-in’s for just a moment. I’ve told my staff that we are only going to participate in events which fulfill one or more of the biblical purposes… worship, evangelism, ministry, fellowship, or discipleship. So, I think if I can establish that lock-in’s have no redeemable purpose, then maybe I’ll never have to endure one again. Where shall I start? One might say that lock-in’s fulfill the biblical purpose of “worship”. I guess you might be able to make that claim since we did have a 30 minute devotional before we watched a movie. But, I think it’s a far stretch for anyone to say 30 minutes of corporate worship time out of 15 hours constitutes a “worshipful lock-in”. How about evangelism? Well, we didn’t bring anyone to Christ or have any baptisms. As for ministry, we sure didn’t help anyone in need. In fact, we created more work for Wallace Williams and our office staff who had to clean up after us (thank you by the way). Unless there were some covert Bible studies going on without my knowledge, I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of discipleship going on. What’s left?

Imagine with me. Two church families live in the same town and share many inter-family ties. Both churches have tried their best over the years to stand together, but haven’t always been very good at it. Now change scenes. Imagine with me the youth of both churches being crammed into a building for 15 hours straight… not a fight, not a quarrel, only laughter, only unity. I have said for a long time, jokingly, that lock-in’s are from the Devil. If that’s true, God took the Devil’s work and turned it around for good. If I need to look for a biblical purpose for this past lock-in, it will most definitely be “fellowship”, because that is exactly what God provided. I hate to admit it, but I suppose God can even work His perfect will through a lock-in. Now I just need to figure out the purpose of the day after the lock-in.