What is Refresh?
Refresh Summer Camp is an annual 5 day evangelistic youth camp packed with fun activities designed to engage high school students from all walks of life. Refresh exists to introduce young people to the person and work of Jesus Christ through an affordable, enjoyable, relational and safe camp experience.
This experience is provided by a community of caring, growing older Christians (called mentors) who show genuine interest in and care for the youth and they prepare the full program. They share the gospel through daily chapels and small groups, and focus on building strong and genuine relationships with the intention to follow up after camp.
Prior to camp, the mentors are discipled and equipped to know and share the gospel in the camp context to youth. The overflow of this method is that mentors’ home churches would be blessed and strengthened with trained members, and that many churchless youth from camp would naturally follow mentors to their church.
Vision Statement
- To share the good news of Jesus Christ to high school students and develop genuine relationships between mentors and youth.
- To build up and strengthen young adult Christians in their walk of faith, through personal discipleship and training in relational evangelism, and to give them a platform to serve youth at camp.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to help people hear, understand and live out the message of Jesus Christ. We provide a safe, fun and relational camp that allows youth to connect with older mentors and witness the joyful reality of life in Jesus. We strive to partner, aid and further the ministry of the local churches by training and discipling young adults and connecting youth back into the church.
How we operate
Refresh Summer Camp is an inter-denominational evangelical Christian mission organisation, specialising in youth outreach in Sydney. We are independent and govern ourselves internally via our Advisory Board. Refresh is not associated with one church or denomination. We are committed to the essential truths of biblical Christianity.
Our team
Advisory Board
Camp Director
Core Leadership Team
Mentors & Assistant Mentors
Our Story
Refresh Summer Camp was founded in 2010, when Andrew and Esther Sylvester saw and felt the weight of a need in their immediate community among migrant churches: for youth to hear the gospel in a clear, relevant and relational way. They rallied a group of passionate friends together to try to meet this need and they launched Refresh Summer Camp in January 2011. Since then, Refresh Summer Camp has been held annually in the first full week of the year, uniquely offering a 1:2 ratio of mentors to youth for deeper relationships, training up hundreds of young passionate adults to share the gospel, and working with local churches after camp to continue the work. There have been countless committed, mature young adults who have poured their heart, time, energy and talents into serving in this ministry over the years to make it all happen. Refresh is built upon the sacrificial service of these young men and women laying down their lives for the gospel, running hard for Christ while juggling their other responsibilities. Refresh has been running with the hope of seeing the next generation of young people connect with older Christians, hear the message of Jesus in their heart language, put their trust in Jesus, and live as disciples and disciplers for life.
A Local Church Resource
As a parachurch organisation, Refresh can be seen by local churches as a reliable resource. It is a resource for their young adults to be trained up and given ministry experience as a type of local mission effort, as well as a resource for their church’s youth ministry to use Refresh as an evangelistic outreach opportunity where youth can bring their non-Christian friends from any culture. Also as an inter-denominational evangelical Christian mission organisation, Refresh seeks to encourage and support many local churches by partnering in their core essential mission of evangelism and discipleship.
Now preparing our 15th annual camp, it’s safe to say that Refresh Summer Camp 2026 will be an awesome way to kick start the year for both youth and mentors!
Refresh Summer Camp 