Progressive Lock-in

Friday night through Saturday morning sacred space was created with eighteen young people and a bunch of other adults who were in and out throughout our time together at the Innagural, maybe annual, Progressive Lock-in.

Many have wondered what a Progressive Lock-in is. We used progressive because our time together would not be spent in one place, we moved between the three churches of the collaborative during the event. Some of the reasoning was to break down territorial issues, but we also wanted the young people and adults to become familiar with these three unique buildings.

To set our time together as something special, we 'lit' a candle at our first location that would travel with us throughout the night. We identified times in our lives that we light candles: birthdays, celebrations, anniversaries, in remembrance, baptisms. These are all special times. We wanted our time together to be special as we began to establish community with one another.

As a youth worker, you have these moments. One of my moments came when I walked into the sanctuary around 6:30 am on Saturday morning. A majority of the students had circled around the altar to tell stories earlier that morning. When I walked in this time, most of them had fallen asleep. But a few sat surrounding the candle we first 'lit' at the beginning of the event. The space I hoped to create was being established by these young people. The community we are dreamed for within this collaborative was beginning to form. And we created sacred space together through being present, through prayer, through conversation, through the stories we told and through the work of the Holy Spirit.