High Gear 2005 Report!

It is Spring and that means not only that flowers are blooming and the allergies are booming, it also means it is time for High Gear (formerly known as Round-up). High Gear is the annual Youth Conference for the Eastern District of the Evangelical Free Church of America, and a chance for teens to showcase their many and varied talents. This year’s event saw 31 teens and 6 sponsors (as well as many other family members along to show support) joining over 300 teens from all over the district in Hershey, PA.



The event started off on Friday with the final Quiz Meet of the year for the church’s Teen Bible Quiz Team, represented by both a Lower Division (7th thru 9th grade) and an Upper Divison (10th thru 12th grade) team. Competing against teams from Essex Fells, NJ, Montgommery, NJ, Creskill, NJ, Dallas, PA, Hershey, PA, Lancaster, PA, and elsewhere, the round robin tournament ended with the Upper Team not in the top 3, but with the Lower Team tied with two other churches for 2nd! A historic 3-way-quizzoff was then held which ended up in 2 overtimes before finally Calvary’s teens wound up in third place for the Lower Division.



Friday night began the Event for the rest of the Youth Group. After a rally featuring a South African dance troupe and guest speaker Jeff Klein, the teens went off to either compete in their various areas of talent or to support those who were competing. Friday night saw 4 of our groups competing: the Calvary Dance Team, two quizzers in a drama called “The Bus Stop”, two other youth group girls in a vocal duet, and a trio of girls performing a skit based on replacing the lyrics of popular rap songs with Christian lyrics. After each performance, the judges rated the performers and gave live feedback to the teens on what worked well and what they could do to improve their work.



Saturday began bright and early with yet more performances, most notably that of the Calvary Girls Ensemble who reportedly was told by their judges “Point of Grace had better be watching out for you ladies!” Saturday also saw the judging of the many items entered into the Art category by our teens, including oil and watercolor paintings, calligraphy, and ceramics, along with a poem entered into the Written category. Alongside these Festivals were a series of Workshops designed to give teens new skills in everything from Pottery to Missions to “Building a Chuch Website” and beyond. The event ended out with another Rally where the Dance Troupe, Speaker, and Worship Band demonstrated in word and deed that any talent can be used for God. And it was another chance for our teens to shine, as the "Bus Stop" Drama and the Calvary Girls Ensemble were asked to perform for everyone at the rally.



High Gear 2006 will be held April 21-22, 2006. Now is the time for your teen to start thinking about how their talents could be used for God and entered for competition. With categories ranging from bible quizzing to vocal to instrumental to dance to written to art to multimedia to worship band to drama to public speaking, there is room for almost any talent under heaven. Please contact the Calvary Youth Ministries Team if you need more information on how you can get involved.