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Candid conversations for the church. Host is Ardin Beech of Windsor District Baptist Church, Sydney, Australia. Co-hosted by Jonathan Hoffman.
Well, here we are back again, 2026. This is Jonathan Hoffman, one of two of the cohosts of This Week At Windsor, and I am so excited today because we have a very special guest. Nick Hood is here from CrewCamps. Nick, thanks for coming on.
Nick:Thanks for having me. Really great to be here.
Jonathan:Now, Nick, you're the CEO. Is that correct? Yeah. And is the organization is it crew camps or just crew?
Nick:Yeah. Just crew, just c r u.
Jonathan:Okay. And what does that stand for?
Nick:It's originally came out of the name Crusaders or the Crusader Union of Australia. Okay. But it's been crew since 2019.
Jonathan:Okay. And what do they do? What's your guys'
Nick:Yeah. We run holiday camps and school camps as well as lunchtime Christian ministry in schools across New South Wales, ACT, and WA, reaching about a 120, 125,000 kids each year with the great news of Jesus.
Jonathan:That's awesome. So the model of the do you guys consider yourself an organization or ministry or what's the
Nick:Yeah. Both. Okay. Yeah. I mean, we're certainly ministry first is what we do.
Nick:And the model is that we have staff each of those divisions. So a holiday camps team, a school camps team, and schools ministry team with a team, know, satellite team in Western Australia as well doing each of those things. Have done some school camps over there, aren't doing that at the moment. So just the holiday camps and schools ministry in WA, but the three this year.
Jonathan:Okay. Now I think I'm familiar. I've probably had a few of my kids go through, like, few crew camps. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a permission slip sitting in my inbox for one of my kids who's going to one of your camps next week.
Nick:So you have signed it already, or
Jonathan:you just just My wife is amazing at that. She she does it. We do not know what asset we have in her. She's amazing. So, no, I have not signed it.
Jonathan:But I'm sure it is has been signed or will
Nick:be signed. I'm sure our team looked forward to receiving it.
Jonathan:That's right. I'm familiar with your guys' operation through schools, but tell us bit about the holiday camp. And I'm assuming that school holiday periods, like, when school's not in session, is that meant to be primarily, like, relief for parents who don't have place to send their kids, or is it more of something else?
Nick:Yeah. Look. It's a mix, and parents send their kids for all different reasons. My own kids go to those camps. For some parents, it's very much two parents working, need to do something with the kids during the holidays.
Nick:Oh, there's a week long residential holiday camp overnight. That sounds great. For others, it's there's a Christian week long residential holiday camp, and that's what that family might be passionate about and and all about following Jesus and so wanting to send their kids on the camp for that reason. It's it's a real mix. We also get kids from the out of home care background as well, and so seek to look after them.
Nick:And so they come with a foster care type setup often. Might have a caseworker who sends them to camp, and and we we work alongside them to make that work.
Jonathan:How do you see camps in that environment as facilitating gospel ministry? I mean, we're we're a church here, so we are obviously a place where, you know, we gather weekly. We conduct services, and we try to walk with people through day to day life. But there's something about the camp experience that I wonder as someone who works in that field, what do you think is it about that environment that helps the ministry you're trying to
Nick:do? Yeah. There's certainly just an intensity of relationships that happens on camp. So there's the combination of things in terms of having meals together, doing activities together, shared experiences where campers and leaders together can enjoy time, enjoy doing things that might be outside their comfort zone together, and all of that builds trust. I love it when I get to see a camper have a go at abseiling or something like that for the first time.
Nick:And then looking up if I'm at the bottom of the abseiling tower, looking up and seeing a leader at the top who might also be their discussion group leader, for example, who's then encouraging them down. And so there's this shared relationship in a time of fear in that example, which builds strength of relationship and openness. And so I think then when that same person sitting alongside them in a discussion group, for example, they're more likely to open up and have a deep conversation. That happens day after day on a holiday camp and relationships build. And so when it's a five or six or even a seven day camp, you go from often someone who might be skeptical about faith or not even open to talking about it to some kind of openness, to a depth of questioning, and they're seeing the life of the leader and and other Christians on camp lived out in front of them and thinking, this is different to what I'm getting in other contexts of my life for many of them.
Nick:And then start asking questions about, well, why? What does this mean? Who is this Jesus guy they're talking about? They seem to be living this way because of him. At least that's what they say.
Nick:So what could I do about that for myself? So there's a real combination of things, I think, that it's hard to pin down to one. We often have teachers comment to us whose kids from the schools go and and church pastors as well who whose kids go off to camp. And when they get there, they make some kind of decision of faith or commitment and that the church or or the the school Christian school teacher thinks, well, what did happen at camp? I've been serving them and sharing the gospel with them for for years.
Nick:Camps is a unique place, I think, which God just in his grace seems to use for things like that as they have time to reflect together as they build those relationships. They're outside their normal patterns of life. Often, they're in a beautiful place and enjoying beautiful experiences together, you know, nice sailing or bushwalking or those kinds of things. And God, Justine, his grace keeps using that to bring them to a commitment, often building on a journey that they've had prior to that.
Jonathan:I really like that point about getting them out of their normal rhythm, and it's been interesting to observe how some of the literature that's coming out about how toxic our regular rhythm has become, particularly the wired component. And so I can see that being able to get out of that, getting out of that screen dependent environment Yeah. And out into the space where you're looking people in the eye, where you're having to, you know, can and do physical challenges and things like that. You can definitely see how that contributes to the formation. But let's talk about your formation.
Jonathan:Yeah. Were you always into camps? Tell us how you got into this role, and more importantly, maybe how did you even come to faith?
Nick:Yeah. So I always was sporty and and outdoorsy. For my year 10 work experience, I went to a camp, not a Christian camp, a government run camp, and I hated the experience and thought I'll never work in this kind of thing again. And it's clearly different experience where I've ended up in life spending fifteen years in camp ministry on staff and volunteering right through that time. And I think the things that changed along the way or part of that journey, coming to faith in the early high school years for me was a lot about relationship with with friends and how that was working.
Nick:I had this experience where for a number of years, was seeing a disconnect between my friends at school who called themselves Christian but didn't seem to be living that out as I thought Christianity is kind of intended as Jesus meant. And a group of friends at church and the church leaders who I saw as called themselves Christian again, but led me in a way, and I thought this is different. There there's a real heart for this and a a meaning behind it, and it's impacting their life, which which is right. What who am I? And those identity questions started coming up.
Nick:I wrestled with that and started investigating who the person of Jesus really was and what Christianity really meant. And so in those early high school years, made a commitment myself. And and that church youth group experience really was foundational in that. Around the same time, I went on some camps which my godmother actually paid for me to go Oh, wow. At a crew camps during that time as my Christmas and birthday present every year.
Nick:They were great and and really formed part of that whole time over the year seven year, eighty nine years where I recognized that what is true Christianity? What does it mean to live for Jesus? Who is he? Really wrestling with those questions and the camp experience, the youth group experience solidified that for me. So that's sort of the early phase of of that journey during the school years.
Nick:Yeah.
Jonathan:Appreciate how the the older generation maybe here in this sense was supporting this
Nick:Absolutely.
Jonathan:Endeavor even though it wasn't really directly. And I love how that gives a vision to maybe some people who might feel detached from the young persons in their world. But what a creative idea. Hey. Let's let's buy them buy them to get to camp.
Jonathan:Boy, that's great.
Nick:Yeah.
Jonathan:As you think about your investigation, you said it kinda had to work it out for yourself. I don't know how distant or approximate that that that time feels to you. What tipped you over the line? Was there something that God revealed to you? Was there a particular issue you were wrestling through?
Jonathan:What what would how would you describe that point when you recognized actually, yeah, this is this is the way, and and I'm gonna follow?
Nick:Yeah. I I mean, I think looking at the facts of Jesus and the history helped. It wasn't, I don't think, the ultimate key moment, but it helped provide a foundation for me, especially when I considered the resurrection and who Jesus claimed to be and that he'd spoken about rising from the dead, and then he did. And it actually seemed historically reasonable. Now I I did that with a year seven, eight mind.
Nick:It wasn't probably the the sharpest investigation, but it did enough to give me confidence that this is real and true. And then I looked at Jesus as a person and went, he he stands out as absolutely unique, and so I wanna follow him. That was the key. That was absolutely supported by those people around me who were believing the same Jesus and speaking about him, and I could see their lives aligned. They weren't perfect.
Nick:They're willing to ask for forgiveness. They led me in a way which was servant hearted and gentle, and they accepted me even though I'd had those experiences at school, which I was finding hard. And I thought, okay. This just all seems to stack up. I'll give it a go.
Nick:Follow Jesus. And where did you grow up? Yeah. So that those days were in Tamworth in Country New South Wales, which was, yeah, a wonderful place to grow up. Really good if you're into sport because everything's five minutes away and you can play multiple sports on a Saturday.
Nick:So I did a lot of that growing up.
Jonathan:And when did you come to Sydney?
Nick:Yeah. So straight out of school, I actually got an offer to a university in Bathurst and was planning on going there and then got some got my HSC marks and went, oh, there's a few more opportunities available now with those. That's better than I expected. And within a four hour time frame, decided I'm gonna change my preferences and end up at Sydney Uni Wow. And did exercise science for a year at Sydney Uni.
Jonathan:How did you find that change moving from regional New South Wales to the city? I guess you were right in and you were a uni student. But maybe talk about, yeah, what you observed then making that change.
Nick:I think the biggest thing that stood out to me was just the intensity and pace of life difference. I ended up at the campus, the Cumberland campus of Sydney Uni, so a more multicultural area of Sydney. And come coming from Tamworth at that point, that was probably one of the biggest shocks that I mean, just the restaurants that were around me, the bakery option like, my world was very different coming to that place.
Jonathan:And how did you go navigating that difference? Like, was that intimidating to you? Was it did it something you looked at as like, oh, great opportunities? Our young people are finding their world increasingly multicultural, which is lovely, but I think can also maybe be overwhelming sometimes. I'm curious how you how you navigated that.
Nick:It was tricky. It was definitely tricky. And I sought to get involved in in a Christian group pretty quickly. That was also tricky that the campus of the uni, the Christian group was struggling at the time, didn't have a lot of people involved, and the gender mix was interesting at a a health sciences campus, about 70% women, 30% guys. So the bible study groups were often out of whack, and so having Christian male friends was tricky during that time as well.
Nick:But I just appreciated that I needed to keep trying at that and keep connecting with with Christians. And I don't mind change. And I and I like variety and and new things, and so I thought, oh, I could either ignore this and and hide in my my room, or I could get out and connect with people and seek to enjoy some of the differences that I'm experiencing. And so I I did that, and that that was great. I I I got through that year.
Nick:It wasn't my favorite year of of my life, but I got through that year and learned a lot through it.
Jonathan:You mentioned HSE, and I'll come back to crew for a second. You guys do study camps as well. Is that is that right?
Nick:That's right. So year 12 camps for kids studying for the HSE.
Jonathan:Okay. So I'm a as you can tell, in case it wasn't obvious already, I didn't grow up here, in Australia. But, so the whole HSE thing is feel feel very strange to me. And I actually have a year 12, a year 11, and a year 10 student right now. So this is gonna be my world.
Jonathan:Like, I'm living in it. You mentioned you Welcome. Yeah. Exactly. You mentioned that your, HSC marks, you know, allowed you to change within a four hour window, like, your the course of
Nick:your future. Absolutely.
Jonathan:Tell us what are those camps trying to do? What's happening in that time? I'm interested for my personal reasons, but also maybe just for others who who are academically inclined and who are kind of thinking about university life.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so they're for anyone who's who's in that age group really, but there's a focus on study. So instead of doing all the outdoor activities, the sailing and abseiling and those kinds of things, they're they're studying for a good number of those hours of the day. So there's six to seven hours of formal study during that time, including some tutoring that happens or assistance from leaders depending on which leaders are on the camp and the needs of the students.
Nick:That's sort of the core thing that happens in terms of the timetable around the meals. There's also talks and discussion groups explaining the bible, and we recognize that on those camps, there's often a larger group that come from non Christian backgrounds. And so usually, the the talks and groups are particularly aimed at students like that as well as those who from Christian backgrounds who are who are coming along and wanting to grow in their faith. They're six or seven days, again, overnight residential type things. So you get all those experiences I talked about before in terms of the shared community together, time in relationships, Christian leaders leading younger people.
Nick:Yeah. Fun times. I I I did one of those camps as a year 12 of myself, and I don't remember doing a lot of study, though I did a lot of study, and it started me on a journey where I then started tracking the hours of study I did afterwards and followed the same pattern and timetable that I'd used on the camp. But what my memory of the camp was was was all those other things, time together, having fun, playing sport together, building friendships with other people. Happened to get a lot of study done along the way.
Jonathan:I'm not gonna let ignore the fact you dropped a six seven reference in there, so thank you for that.
Nick:No worries. My son will be excited with us there.
Jonathan:So you have a son. Tell us about your family. What's what's family like?
Nick:Yeah. So married married to Larelle, and we've got four kids aged four through 12. Started with twins. Four through 13, actually, now. They're the other the eldest have turned 13, so twin 13 year olds now.
Jonathan:Wow. You just started started with Welcome
Nick:to parenting. Yes.
Jonathan:No no wading in. Just jump right to the deep. Absolutely. Yes.
Nick:But we didn't know anything different, and so that's the one joy of that experience Yeah. Until you reflect back on it and think what happened in those first few years. And and certainly, more so for my wife than I, but for both of us, it is very much as we reflect back on those early years of what just happened, how did we get through that. I was in a director of holiday camps role at Crewe during that time, and so I was often away traveling, dealing with late night phone calls from camps, those kinds of things whilst parenting newborns.
Jonathan:Wow. Your wife must be a hero. That's amazing. She is. What can you tell us about the issues that kids are facing?
Jonathan:Like, I'd imagine in a camp scenario, kids are vulnerable. They're out of their routine as we discussed, or they're, you know, study camps. They're right on the edge of, you know, HSC and all that. Have you noticed are the issues that came up, are they the same ones that seem to perpetually come up, or are there new ones coming up given the way society's changing?
Nick:Yeah. I mean, there there are some of the same ones, the regular behaviorally type challenges of putting people into that kind of context that that that's been going on for for years whenever kids hang out together anywhere, really, isn't But I think the ones that are are newer or we're seeing an increase in is things related to anxiety. If we just look at even our medication numbers and percentages or kids with additional needs, it's growing and growing and has particularly over the last ten years. So I think of, like, Jonathan Haidt's work at the anxious generation and those kids coming on camp. Camp is a very strange out of their comfort zone experience for for a lot of kids.
Nick:Spending that many hours in a social setting for many is just overwhelming. And so we need to work on how do we slow things down, how do we allow reflection. Even recently, we've done a bunch of work at our Goldston site on the acoustics of the dining room because it was too difficult for many to have a conversation just with the noise. But for kids with sensory needs, it was impossible. And they were often having to leave the room and then not be in a conversation, not being able to have a gospel conversation, for example, over the meal.
Nick:And so there's changes right through given some of those factors that are happening in society.
Jonathan:How do you go with follow-up in terms of, you know, for now, I'm putting my pastor hat on. You are in a fairly tight
Nick:Yeah. It's an itinerant type setting.
Jonathan:Yeah. And you're in an itinerant setting. You're in a fairly tight window of time where you're you're bringing truth whilst you're also walking along with kids. Is that something where you just sort of have to trust God to say, well, God, we're just gonna trust that you you sort of take it from here. Mhmm.
Jonathan:Or are there things that you put in place to to kind of go with the students, go with the kids as they as they lead?
Nick:Yeah. I wanna say both and there. Like, there's certainly a trust in God that he knows, and and this camp is just a step in their journey, and we don't know all the ways that he will engage with them and who's placing around them in the years to come. So there's there's that. That's true.
Nick:Majority of kids that come on our camps have some experience with us or their school setting, which we run Christian lunchtime groups, crew groups in schools. And often they go back to those, and we encourage them to go back and join their group if they haven't already in their school. And so the majority of independent schools around New South Wales, ACT, and increasingly in WA, we have those groups running, which we can encourage them into. And also the leaders that are on camps are involved in churches. So they're mostly volunteers.
Nick:They're involved in churches. And so helping those leaders connect those students either with their church or the church of another crew leader, we can facilitate that connection. There's some challenges with privacy in that space we've gotta be careful of, but we always wanna encourage. As the students get older, it's up to the year twelve years. It's much easier because, for example, if they can drive, make the decision for themselves and off they go.
Nick:They'll join a youth group or connecting them with other Christians on the camp who they might then live near and be able to go along with. And so certainly, it's not on a 100% success type scenario in terms of those who want to join a youth group or a church do, but a good number do, and we're really encouraged by that.
Jonathan:You mentioned challenges, and I know that a lot of Christian venue organizations really struggled through COVID. Yeah. A lot of them didn't survive. How did you guys navigate that time? And coming out of that time, did did anything have to change, or was it a matter of adapting to survive?
Jonathan:How how I'm curious how crew navigated that.
Nick:Yeah. I wasn't on staff during those years. I was on staff prior and afterwards. Blessing there. But I'd I wasn't I was a volunteer during those years, directed some study camps during that time, and led some university Christian group camps at the cruise site.
Nick:And both those experiences made me realize how complicated it was just in terms of, you know, betting numbers. Camps are intensive contexts, which are close together, sharing food in terms of, you know, in a common dining room and those kinds of things. And so if you think back to the regulations around COVID, all things are really difficult to manage. It hit crew hard in both in financial sense in terms of numbers of kids coming on camps, and we haven't regained the numbers in terms of the holiday camp numbers from prior to that point because of it we lost momentum during that time. Yeah.
Nick:And so it's been a challenge. But we're thankful to have had some creative strategies during that time, again, which weren't easy, but we had some staff head off and work in the aged care sector even though their primary job was prior to that in the school camping sector as outdoor educators and and outdoor ministers. And so we did some creative things and some partnerships to keep them employed and to be able to get through that time, but not not easy at all. And we're certainly thankful for for donors who kept supporting during that time and and have since as well, which has kept us being able to do lots of great ministry.
Jonathan:So you said you weren't a part of this organization at the time. You come back now as as CEO. What were you doing in the intervening time?
Nick:Yeah. So I did some bible college. So I'd done some part time study at Sydney Missionary Bible College and then continued that full time, lived on campus for a couple of years and and finished that, which was great. A really close life small life experience living on campus. Our back door, we could see the library of of the college and living in a pretty close community there, which was great church just just down the road.
Nick:That was a couple of years, and then I headed off to do university ministry for six years after that in Newcastle.
Jonathan:Tell us a bit about that. What was that like for you?
Nick:Yeah. Highly relational and pretty low key, I think is the the summary. Like, just one to one catch ups with students. I still till today catch up with a a med student, medicine student who I connected with through that time at university ministry, who I mentor, read the bible with. That's what I was doing a lot of the time there, as well as giving bible talks, encouraging students to get out and do evangelism on campus, doing that alongside them, inviting them into the Christian group, and encouraging them into their churches.
Jonathan:That's fascinating. In my experience here, there's a number of Christian uni groups that I think are doing a great job evangelizing and discipling. And I think it's a space where churches have a lot to learn and grow in. And so I'm curious based on your time in that ministry and then your experience in the local church. What are some things that you think local churches could learn about how to reach their youth and young adults?
Nick:Yeah. I I mean, I think just remembering that the key way that most people come to faith is alongside someone else in relationship with them. And so we might wanna run some kind of program or event, and there's some value in those things. But most people come because someone else comes with them or invites them because they've got a prior relationship. And so we need to make sure that we're in spaces and our students, for example, in university are in spaces in lectures alongside people who they can build relationships with and not just head off, for example, to the Christian group all the time in every bit of free time and not build any friendships with those they're studying alongside.
Nick:Similar in the workplace, they need to be able to build those relationships in order to then get alongside them, build trust, share their life with them, which looks like includes sharing the gospel with them because that is part of who we are. And so they're not separate endeavors or a project. They're a person and we build relationship with them. And And so in university ministry, that was just a key part of what we wanted to do and what we tried to encourage Christian students to do. That was tricky.
Nick:Christian students come to Christian groups at universities often because university is an overwhelming place like I found it, and they think here's my safe people. And so that's great. We can work with that, but we've then gotta get them to the point where they go, who else is around? Who can I connect with? Who's God putting on my heart to connect with, to pray for, to build relationships with, and to share Jesus with?
Jonathan:So take me through that next step because really uni can be a hostile environment. I think a lot of young people I've talked to feel very much put on the back foot by some of the things lecturers are saying or their fellow classmates are saying. What was effective evangelism relationally? What what did it look like? Can you give me, like, a for instance, or this is something I saw, or this is something that someone did and and it seemed to to work well?
Nick:Yeah. I mean, the students who started those relationships pretty early at uni and made clear that they were Christians, so were honest and upfront and said, I'm going to the Christian group on Wednesday at lunchtime, or I'm I'm off to church. I go to a church on the weekend. Who made that clear to start with? That was really key.
Nick:I think it set them up well and gave them confidence that that's okay. I can operate in this setting even if they get some pushback. And it also made the other person and the other classmates, for example, aware of, okay, I'm looking out for your life now and I'm engaging. If I've got questions, I can ask you. I know Sam Chan uses the analogy of the community chaplain and so to position yourself as the person people would come to if their life was to fall apart.
Nick:And so what does that look like? Well, it just means being there for people and being open, being a good listener, asking good questions of them, going along to things that you might not be interested in, but they are, and and being a friend in that sense. I think often, and particularly for young people, but often for for many of us, we can do the you come to my thing and get disappointed when they don't, and then reflect we've never been to any of their things. And so making sure we're part of their life as well. So students who did those things well over years often while praying for others and finding things to invite them along to where they didn't have to be the one saying everything.
Nick:Someone else was doing that from the front. That often helped as well.
Jonathan:That's really helpful. And I think a lot of people struggle with knowing what that looks like. But it's almost creating creating a security and the safety of the relationship alongside honesty. You know, there's no deception here. This is who I am.
Jonathan:This is what I believe. Yeah. But creating that security and safety that it can hold tensions. It can
Nick:hold doubts.
Jonathan:I'm not gonna cut and run. I'm not just here for you to affirm my view of things, but I actually care about you as a person. It really goes a long way towards laying the groundwork for once you speak about the love of God in Christ. They They already have categories that are essentially this is already something different here.
Nick:Yeah. Correct. Yeah. I mean, the the one example that comes to mind to me is the medicine students. There was a group of them who were Christian and worked together on a lot of assignments and things like that alongside those who weren't Christian in their class, and they spent a lot of time together.
Nick:I think it was third year. One of the students in the course actually passed away, and it sent shock waves through the university, but particularly the medicine faculty and that class group, that year group. The conversations that came out of that with the Christian students about life, meaning purpose, they lasted for a number of years and probably are still going on today as a result of them just building trusting real relationships and being willing to listen and even cry alongside those people who are really struggling through that.
Jonathan:Wow. That's so profound. I appreciate you sharing that story. Just a couple of things before I let you go. First of all, you are connected to a member of our family here at WDBC.
Jonathan:Our very own producer, Katie McGregor, knows you. Can you tell us bit about your context of knowing Katie?
Nick:Yeah. So we were at a church in Glenhaven together. I lived on the crew campsite at Galston for a number of years, and so we went to the local church, which Glenhaven Emanuel Emanuel Emanuel was the local church, her family had grown up there. And so I got to know her during that time. We're both a bit younger at that point.
Nick:But, yeah, that's where I got to know the Oates family.
Jonathan:Well, thank you so much, Nick, for taking time to be with us today, for sharing about your your life, your journey, your ministry. And, yeah, what an exciting opportunity is there. I I came to faith at a camp that was pivotal in my life. It's not in this country, but a lot of those things, God used, you know, that separation from the routine, that vulnerability, the intentional focusing on some of the deeper questions in life. It's amazing how the spirit of god just used that to to grab my attention.
Jonathan:So, a lot of respect for what you do, a lot of respect for crew and the ministry. Yeah. So thank you for taking time with us today.
Nick:Alright. Thanks so much for
Jonathan:having me. Well, that was Nick Hood, everybody. What a great opportunity to reflect on the uniqueness of camp ministry, the role that it can play in people's lives, and really just the way that God uses relationships to help advance his kingdom and share the love of Christ. Thanks for tuning in with us. We look forward to catching you next week on This Week at Windsor.