SAVE THE DATE Monday, December 29, 2025 — YOUTH LOCK-IN AT UNIVERSITY CHURCH
CONTACT Min. Jeremy Young: (312) 841-4188 or jeremy@universitychurchchicago.org Pastor Julian DeShazier: Julian@UniversityChurchChicago.org
With so many complaints about “nothing” to do after Christmas and before school restarts, we created the Youth Lock-In back in 2013 to give our church youth a chance to fellowship together in a safe, loving space. Soon we expanded the invitation to other church youth groups, and one year had 11 (!) youth groups in attendance! We are back again this December, and would love to have you join us. Here are the details, because of course you have questions!
WHEN: Monday, December 29, 2025, beginning at 7pm and ending on Tuesday morning, December 30th, at 7am. Pickup time is 7AM SHARP.
WHERE: University Church, 5655 S. University Church, Chicago, IL, 60637
WHAT: a “lock-in” in the most traditional sense…the building will be closed to entry or exit, secured and monitored by chaperones the entire night, with food and activities occurring throughout the whole time. Phones are discouraged except when necessary to contact/update parents and guardians, and all of our activities encourage positive engagement with their peers and possible new friends. Some of our confirmed activities include
Concert/Mini-worship feat. J.Kwest (do one of your youth want to sing/dance/rap/spoken word?)
room for video and board games
room for karaoke
Nerf team activities (think laser tag, dodgeball, etc)
areas for quiet conversation and prayer
food all night (dinner, snacks, and breakfast, with all dietary restrictions and allergies considered)
separate sleeping areas for boys and girls (on separate floors)
WHO: all UChurch youth, their friends, and other youth groups! There is no age requirement – think 5th grade-HS senior. All personality types are welcome and will have something to engage them. All youth groups must send at least one chaperone for every five kids they register, with a minimum of one chaperone for every youth group attending (kids attending as part of UChurch or as friends of UChurch members are not required to bring a chaperone; the church will provide chaperones at a 1:5 ratio for our youth)
THERE IS NO COST FOR THIS EVENT. YOU MUST RSVP THOUGH, by contacting Min. Jeremy Young via the information above or using the link below:
Again, you MUST RSVP for EACH participant. For safety reasons, only those that RSVP will be allowed into the building.
QUESTIONS YOU ARE ASKING RIGHT NOW:
This is weird. I don’t know you. Why would I drop off my kids?
Great question, and considering the safety of your child should be your highest priority. It is ours as well. All of our staff have criminal background checks, and you can actually stay and be a chaperone for a portion or all of the evening. All rooms will be monitored constantly, no youth will be encouraged to (or able to) sneak off outside or in a secret room in the building, and boys and girls will be separated if they choose to sleep. In our 12 years we have never had an incident, and we have a strict conduct policy which every youth must sign upon entry (any violations and you will need to come pick them up). We take having fun seriously, and we take safety more seriously.
Wait, explain the chaperone thing again??
In short: if you are a parent of a UChurch youth (or your child is attending at the invitation of a UChurch youth) you do not need to stay the entire night, although you are welcome to! If you are part of a youth group from a different church, you must provide at least one chaperone for every five youth you register, with a minumum of one adult chaperone coming with each youth group. All chaperones must stay the entire night.
More questions? Need to talk to an actual human about this?
No worries. Contact Min. Jeremy or Pastor Julian at the info above.
See below for a list of voting guides provided to us by both members and partner organizations. These are not endorsements but opportunities for you to understand perspectives on candidates, do your own research, and make an informed, faithful choice! If you’d like to send a guide to be posted here, send to uchurch@universitychurchchicago.org
Chicago School Board Election Info:
From the Chicago Teachers Union, a list of candidates they are endorsing for the first ever ELECTED CPS school board, and a School Board Elections Pamphlet (CLICK TO OPEN) that provides an overview of the history and process…
VoteForJudges.org compiles evaluations by bar groups including the Illinois State Bar Association, the Chicago Bar Association, the Chicago Council of Lawyers, and maybe a dozen other lawyers’ groups that evaluate candidates for the bench in Cook County. Those evaluations will be available by June 1 in a simple grid through this website: http://www.voteforjudges.org/
(Note that the VoteForJudges.org now focuses on contested races where one candidate has been found to be better than qualified. They no longer publish in grid form results for races that are either uncontested or where all evaluations found all of the candidates to be merely qualified or unqualified.)
For judicial evaluations in the rest of the state, I don’t know of any one site that aggregates multiple judicial evaluations, but the State Bar Association is pretty thorough. You should be able to find them on their website at https://www.isba.org/elections
INFORMATION ON VOTING:
*sent by a member (we aren’t taking credit for this awesome information!)
The presidential election is on Tuesday, November 5, and early voting in parts of the state has already started. The State Board of Elections offers a list of early voting locations in every part of Illinois:
Also, your local election authority might have an online request form. (See below)
If you decide that you want to vote by mail, I encourage you to return it as soon as you can so that your local election authority has plenty of time to process it. If you don’t want to put your ballot into the mail, in Illinois you can submit it at early voting locations.
Whenever you decide to vote, here are some websites to get lists of all candidates who are running for office at your address, and to get evaluations (not endorsements) of candidates for judicial office.
Many of these websites will also allow you to request a mail-in ballot online and to confirm that you are registered to vote. If it turns out that you are not registered to vote at your current address, most of these websites will allow you to register online if you have a current Illinois driver’s license. If you don’t have a current driver’s license or if your local election authority’s site doesn’t offer that option, these sites will also have information on “grace period” registration, which will let you register to vote and cast a ballot at the same time on certain days in the offices of your local election authority and at the polling place on election day.
If you live somewhere else in Illinois, the State Board of Elections has a list of all local election authorities in the state, together with their websites (if they have one). Note that municipal election boards are listed after all of the county election authorities. Not all offer sample ballots, but many do. Have a look:
Also, there will be some non-binding advisory questions at the top of the ballot and depending on where you live, there may be some binding referenda in different parts of the state; those will appear right after the candidates seeking office but before those seeking retention as judges.
