Compass Australia

The Story of Compass Australia

Original Vision – 2004

In 2004, ACL felt a conviction to establish a national strategic future leaders training initiative. In pursuing the above it was also recognised that any initiative should also address the following concerns:

• The alarming high drop-off rate for Christians who leave the faith during their university years.
• That younger Christians are not being taught how to adequately engage with competing philosophies and worldviews, nor see the Christian faith as an integrated worldview.
• A subtle and destructive dualistic mindset that puts a separation between the sacred and secular. This results in Christians compartmentalising their faith to private interests only, such as personal character and morality, with no further influence on other parts of society and culture, including public policy and politics.

In consultation with several key Christian leaders, ACL decided to work towards the following:

• To run an annual conference for no more than 80 Christian students, aged 18-25, each nominated by an already established Christian leader based on their strong faith, good performance in their studies and their desire to make a positive impact on the world for the sake of Christ and for the world.
• To support the growing alumni community by encouraging them to network and socialise, to link them with established leaders and to develop resources.

Compass Australia – 2008

In a joint arrangement (as a trading entity under ACL called Compass Australia), the ACL and the Compass Foundation (NZ) ran the first ‘Compass Summer Conference – Australia’ in 2008, which satisfied the original ACL intentions. Compass Foundation (NZ) had operated in New Zealand since 2004. Their curriculum was based around understanding the gospel, reading culture well, and translating faithfully between the two. ACL effectively underwrote the event and with its connections helped to provide a bank of established Australian Christian leaders as professional based speakers. The Compass Foundation provided the core-content lectures plus a wealth of experience in helping to run these types of conferences.

Compass Australia, operating out of the ACL, continued to work with the Compass Foundation and with its core speakers and curriculum, during 2008-2010. What initially started as an occasional lecture at a Christian schooling leadership conference in Canberra from 2004 (an event for Year 12 leaders from key Christian schools across the nation), led to the organisers inviting Compass to provide the full syllabus and delivery for the entire conference by 2009 and thereafter.

Over 50 Christian schools, thousands of students and hundreds of teachers were now exposed to the Compass curriculum through the schools conference. In addition, there were dozens of principals who had already nominated students for the university level summer conference and were hearing very positive feedback from delegates.

Broader Vision – 2009

During 2009, Compass Australia was invited by various Christian schools to consider doing a number of smaller conferences in WA and Tasmania, and to consider developing teacher professional development courses.

These developments caused ACL and the Compass Foundation (NZ) to consider whether Compass Australia should be birthed in Australia as an organisation in its own right and pursue a broader vision beyond just the one summer conference.

Compass Foundation (Australia) – 2011

In late 2010, ACL and the Compass Foundation (NZ) agreed to birth Compass Australia out from ACL and establish it as a separate entity. In January 2011 Compass Foundation (Australia) [CFA] was born, with the sole and founding member being the Compass Foundation (NZ). ACL has a permanent representative on the CFA board and the Compass summer conference will continue to be run in association with ACL. The CFA headquarters were relocated from Canberra to the Gold Coast in April 2011.

CFA continues to pursue its original intention of being a national strategic future leaders training initiative (through the Compass summer conference) but is now able to pursue broader work – with Christian students in Year 11 and 12, with its summer conference alumni, with teacher professional development, with its networking of emerging and established leaders and with an increasing catalogue of materials and resources.

For more information about the vision, mission and values of Compass please visit www.compass.org.au.