AUGUST 15-17, 2025

Frequently Asked Questions

DATE & LOCATION

  • St Matt’s 2025 Church Camp will be held from Friday evening 15th August, to Sunday 17th August, 2025 at CRU Lake Mac. 

  • CRU Lake Mac is located on the shore of Lake Macquarie, approximately 1 hour 20 minutes from St Matts. 

    Assistance with travel will be available and worked out closer to the date e.g. car pooling.

ABOUT CHURCH CAMP

  • Church Camp 2025 will encourage us in our faith and equip us for mission. It will be a fantastic time for us to gather as a community around God’s word for a weekend. As we seek to live out our vision as a community of lifelong disciples of Jesus, engaging our world with grace and truth, a weekend away together will create deeper intergenerational relationships across congregations.

  • Mark Stephens, an SMBC New Testament lecturer is speaking on Hope in the New Creation: Why the hope of eternity makes all the difference for living now from Revelation 21 and 22. He has spent lots of time thinking through the Book of Revelation and it will be exciting to hear of the hope we have in Jesus.

     

    Mark has recorded a video message for us. Watch it on YouTube now!

  • The program is still under development, however the weekend will include:

    • A kick-off session on Friday night

    • 2 sessions each morning consisting of prayer, praise and bible teaching

    • Hearing from others in our community eg. interviews and panels

    • Free time with optional planned activities on Saturday afternoon

    • A whole of community event on Saturday evening

    • Enjoying fellowship and connection over meals and other informal program times (with social activities and games available)

  • Yes. Planning is underway for a children’s program. Your feedback from the 2024 Expression of Interest survey, assisted us in our planning to ensure that Church Camp 2025 is a great time for our children.

  • The children’s program will be coordinated by Heather and run by a team of St Matts volunteers. Our aim is for volunteers to only need to serve on the children’s program for a max of one session over the weekend, so that they participate in the adult or youth sessions. This is dependent on who attends and the size of the children’s program.

  • Yes. Planning is underway for a youth program. The youth program will integrate with aspects of the ‘adult’ program and will involve them joining in for some of the main teaching sessions, before breaking off into youth-specific sessions and workshops.

    The 2024 Expression of Interest survey, assisted us in our planning to ensure that Church Camp 2025 is a great time for our youth.

    Note: there will not be a St Matts Youth Camp in 2025, encouraging church families to participate in Church Camp and reducing the financial cost for families.

  • Yes, we would love our youth to invite their non-church friends, especially as there will not be a St Matts Youth Camp in 2025.

  • There will be no service held onsite for the Sunday of Church Camp.

FACILITIES & ACCOMMODATION

  • St Matt’s has booked CRU Lake Mac’s modern cabin accommodation. Each cabin has 10 rooms with most of the rooms sleeping 6 people in bunk beds. There are a limited number of twin share rooms available and each cabin has one wheelchair-friendly room. All rooms have a bathroom and the cabins are air-conditioned.

    Each multi-room cabin also has a shared lounge room, which will be perfect for parents of younger children to hang-out if their children are sleeping.

    The site also has older A-Frame Huts that sleep 10 people. We have not booked any of these huts but if numbers allow, we may be able to book this accommodation. The A-Frame Huts are approximately 25% cheaper than the cabins.

  • Whilst we would love to provide everyone with a choice on their room type, and who they room with, we are also conscious we are a diverse group with varying needs. Most of the rooms on site contain six beds and we want to ensure we use the space available efficiently. Following are the guiding principles for room allocation:

    • Accessibility issues will be a key consideration for those who are less mobile

    • Teenagers will be allocated to separate male and female bunk rooms – similar to a youth camp

    • Adults will be allocated to separate male and female bunk rooms

    • Families with young children will be allocated their own bunk-bed room

    • The limited number of twin share rooms will be allocated to those with the greatest need

    Final room allocation will be done by the camp organising team, in consultation with the ministry team.

  • The site does have accessible pathways between most key buildings e.g. accommodation blocks and the dining hall. Access to the lakefront will be difficult for some people. Each multi-room cabin has one accessible, ground floor room including an accessible bathroom.

  • Yes, more details about the campsite and facilities can be found at crulakemac.com.au.

REGISTRATION AND COST

  • In 2023, our Thanksgiving Day offering contributed $15,000 towards our 2025 Church Camp. That allows us to cover the costs to run camp and offer discounted accommodation rates.

    If you are willing to pay the standard rate, that will allow us to provide further help to those who are experiencing financial hardship.

    Click here to the cost breakdowns.

  • Yes. Whilst we would love all attendees to stay for the whole program, we understand that some may be only able to attend on the Saturday. If accessibility concerns are a barrier to you attending for the weekend, we would love to know as we may be able to solve those issues. Please speak to someone on the organising team or to a member of the staff team.

  • We understand that the cost to attend camp will be unaffordable for some people. If cost is a barrier to you attending camp, please speak to a member of staff.

  • Registrations will open on 11th May 2025, three months prior to Church Camp.

FOOD

  • The team at CRU Lake Mac provide healthy buffet-style meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as tasty snacks for morning tea, afternoon tea and supper. For coffee lovers, there’s also two coffee machines to help you recharge!

  • Yes, CRU Lake Mac has experience in catering for guests with special diets and food allergies. We will be sure to gather any dietary requirements ahead of camp.

Church Camp Organising Team:

John Batten, Pat Codling, Di Kivell, Justin Leon, Sarah-Jane Leon, Callum Meikle, Lyndell Nixey, Emma Roberts, Harry Roberts.