Youth Leader Reflects on the Magic of UYC 2025

Having been a leader at every Uniting Youth Camp (UYC) since 2022, it was a joy and an honour to be part of UYC 2025 and to have witnessed what I believe is an ‘arrival’ moment in the growth journey that we as a camp community have been on since UYC’s conception. 

UYC 2025 was full of all the things a youth camp should be full of: friendships, food, games on tarps covered with slime, the abandonment of said games for slip-and-slide adjacent anarchy, rock climbing, archery, campfire singalongs, and pranks conducted by both high schoolers and adult leaders alike.

This year brought a new-found fervour about the house colour groups that UYC attendees are sorted into, with the house captains of the Blue Bears, Red Raptors, Yellow Gorillas and Purple Wolves pulling out all stops to rally their respective houses to earn points for the ‘House Cup’. 

But beyond all of the fun, there were two things that I noticed about camp this year which struck a chord with me as a returning leader, and which have filled me with a deep sense of conviction that there is something very special going on in the UYC community that the wider church needs to hear about and invest into.  

The first of these two things was the way that the campers took ownership of the worship part of the camp program. Each final night of UYC since 2022, we have held a camper-led night of worship and celebration.

While this has taken on a variety of themes throughout the years, the aim of the leadership team has been to encourage campers to share something of their own: a reflection of their faith, or their growth, or of what camp has meant for them; and each year we have been blown away by what the campers have brought to the table. I can vividly remember a room brought to tears by a single spoken line about acceptance and belonging in 2022, and have myself been part of some multi-church bands on these final nights of camp.  

This year, however, not only was the final night a celebration with dances, testimonies, poetry, music and reflections from campers, but each day of camp there were worship sessions led by our high schoolers - some who came as full bands from their respective churches, and some who jumped on board to have a go with some other keen musicians and became part of bands made up of members from all over NSW and the ACT, brought together by this camp, this opportunity, this invitation to bring their talents and use them for God at camp.  

The second thing that I noticed wasn’t as obvious - where the culture of worship stood out loudly (literally) and clearly as something special this year, this second thing was subtle and nuanced, hard to pinpoint or to wrap words around. But, at its crux, it was connection. Relationship. The fruits of friendships invested into for the past four years - friendships that span geographical and cultural boundaries.

There was a togetherness that I noticed this year, a unity that spoke of trust built, of an understanding that each member of this UYC community is welcomed, loved, and valued for exactly who they are and what makes them unique. It has taken us a few years and a few mistakes along the way, and obviously there is always room for growth, but this year more than any other year I was able to look around and see one UYC community, rather than a gathering of smaller communities from home congregations that had come to UYC.

I saw it in the joy on faces when campers realised that leaders had returned to camp for another year, in the way that campers celebrated each others’ successes when rock climbing, in the jokes shared and in the vulnerabilities confided. I saw it in the pretences dropped and in the authenticity of interactions.  

It has been a joy and an honour not only to lead at UYC 2025, but to bear witness to the growth of both individual campers and this whole community over the past four years. This year we reached an ‘arrival’ moment in terms of our hopes for what UYC could be as an authentic community that spans beyond geographical and cultural boundaries, and I look forward with great excitement to seeing future outworkings of this community.  

It is abundantly clear to me that in UYC we see a glimpse of the potential of the future of the Uniting Church, and I feel a deep conviction that this is something that we as the church need to prioritise investing into. I wonder what the church will look like in the years to come, and I also wonder what parts of that will be a direct effect of the faith development and building of relationships that has taken place at UYC.  

Sophie van Ede 

Youth Leader at Uniting Youth Camp