Creative juices flow at national arts camp in Victoria
BY ANTHONY CASTLE
The 2025 National Creative Arts Camp (NCAC) is an opportunity for youth and young adults from around the country to learn, grow and share.
The annual event, which ran from 12-18 January, was hosted by the Worship Arts Team at Blampied, north of Ballarat (Victoria).
NCAC is a camp specifically designed to encourage, train and develop young creatives within The Salvation Army.
NCAC brought together young creatives aged 15 to 30, with spiritual leadership throughout the week from Major Sandra McLean, Faith Communities Development Secretary, Victoria and SA/NT.
The camp offered creative streams like visual arts, music theatre, brass band, dance and worship.
The event provides unique and important opportunities for up-and-coming creatives, building faith, skills, and community for diverse young people within a national experience.
“I very much believe creative arts and music can play a really important part in worship and a really important part in bringing us all closer to God through the use of the arts and particularly music,” said Territorial Worship Arts Manager Ken Waterworth.
“In terms of the NCAC, I would hope that I would be able to inspire young people to better use their art and their art form to be able to worship and be able to connect with other people in making great music and sharing their own faith journey through the aspect of music in The Salvation Army.”
The campers were celebrated at the National Creative Arts Camp Concert at Brimbank Corps on Friday 16 January.
Sandra shared a reading from Romans 12 with those at the camp concert, which gave a biblical backbone to the reason why the creative arts camp is vital for young people:
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”
The livestream of the camp concert can be viewed here.
