We hope you enjoy enCompass for December 2011. Have a great Christmas and New Year! We wish you all the best.

The Compass Team

COMPASS SUMMER CONFERENCES 2012, LAST DAYS TO REGISTER

Registrations and nominations for our 2012 summer conferences are filling up fast. We are really excited about how things are shaping up this year. John Stonestreet is back, offering his significant insight and experience in the area of Christian engagement with culture. We are also trying out a few new things this year over the conference week, which we believe will make the experience even more rewarding. Check out the details below to find out more.

New Zealand

The New Zealand conference will be held from 7 - 14 January, at Lifeway campus, Snells Beach (about an hour north of Auckland). If you have not yet registered and still plan to come along, then please try and register by Wednesday this week (December 21), spaces are filling up fast and this will be the only way to guarantee your spot. We would love more people to come along, so if you can think of anyone who would benefit from a week exploring the gospel, our culture and how to live faithfully out of the story of Scripture in today's world, then please direct them to our website or enourage them to email us at admin@compass.org.nz .

Click here for more information

Australia

The Australian conference (in association with ACL) will be held from 15 - 22 January, at the St Lucia campus, University of Queensland, Brisbane. There are just a few places left. If you are interested in attending or nominating someone to attend, more information is available on our website.

Click here for more information

THE COMPASS TEAM

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE

Compass is delighted to announce the release of its second book – The Hare and the Tortoise – in time for the new year. It is a monthly calendar – in full colour – designed to help you rediscover healthy rhythms amidst a culture that shapes us to live frantic, fragmented lives.

We are offering you the special opportunity to pre-order The Hare and the Tortoise. IF YOU ORDER BEFORE FRIDAY 23RD OF DECEMBER, we will endeavour to have it out to those in New Zealand in the first week of January, and Australia a little later. (If you are coming to Compass this summer, don’t pre-order – it will be available there.)

To check out a sample of the Introduction and the first chapter, and make your order, click here.

Mark Sayers has this to say about The Hare and the Tortoise:

"From our vantage point in the over-stimulated, over-stressed and over-busy West; we look back at the Christian movements which dramatically reshaped nations and transformed whole cultures with awe. Yet we fail to understand that that these movements were made up of ordinary people who took the time to reorient their lives around ancient biblical rhythms. The engine of cultural change is fueled by the spiritual disciplines. In The Hare and the Tortoise Shamy, Bloore and Allpress have provided a tool for people caught in the contemporary buzz to again be changed by the seasons, movements and disciplines of scripture. Such a book has the potential to again fuel a culture-changing movement in our day. Highly recommended."

Mark Sayers – Cultural Commentator and author of The Trouble with Paris, The Vertical Self and The Road Trip Which Changed The World.

THE COMPASS TEAM

ALUMNI INTERVIEW WITH WADE McMILLAN

This month we interview Compass NZ 2009 alumnus, Wade McMillan. Wade is currently the General Manager of Brothers in Arms (BIA), a youth-mentoring programme started in Auckland. BIA’s mission is to bring hope and life change to marginalised young people through quality, long term mentoring relationships.

Tell us a bit about BIA and how you came to be involved?

A friend of mine suggested I get involved because I was looking for some way of getting involved with youth. So I went along to the training. As it turned out I couldn’t commit to the year requirement at the time, which worked out well because I went on to do a year-long internship at the Maxim Institute – a research and public policy think-thank.

It was at Maxim that I got the opportunity to do a research project on effective youth mentoring – through that I came to the conclusion that all good mentoring exists only in the context of a trusting relationship. A year after finishing Maxim and going back to work as an engineer, I found out that the current general manager was moving on and BIA was looking to fill the position. I was encouraged to apply.

You came to Compass two years ago – has that had any influence on the way you approach your work?

Compass helped me to learn that I was part of a big story. It’s a story that affects and influences all of life – and the story gets better as you engage with it. There was a creative integration and explanation of the way that the gospel and culture could interact that I hadn’t heard before. A short time later I learnt more about BIA and that it exists to bring hope and change to young people in a world where positive role models are non existent. It was gospel meeting the culture of our society head on, and that inspired me.

So, has it impacted the way I work? Yes – I’m in my job because I get to action the things I learnt and engaged with at Compass!

How do the BIA volunteers involve their young people over Christmas?

One of the things BIA understands is that a lot of little interactions can make a big difference. (Which is one of the reasons we ask our mentors to sign up for a minimum of one year.) So while it is great to do something special at Christmas – and we do: we put on an end of year Beach Day to celebrate with the kids and all their families – it is much more important that BIA mentors are available in day-to-day ways throughout the year.

Often it’s really difficult for the mentors to do too much over the main summer break, because a lot of them have their own family commitments in other parts of the country. We are happy for them to be where they need to be over that time, because part of what we are modeling to our youth is how to be committed and involved with your own family as well. However, before and after their time away, we really encourage our volunteers to remember that their young people come from situations where they don’t have the opportunity to celebrate at Christmas, and to try and make it special for them however they can. I’d encourage all Compass alumni to be thinking of small ways that they can be doing the same in their own communities! Even though I run the place, I still get a kick out of giving a little extra of my free time and spending it with a young person in need.

Find out more about Brothers in Arms at www.brothersinarms.org.nz

THE COMPASS TEAM

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER BY SAINT AUGUSTINE

Let the just rejoice, for their Justifier is born.

Let the sick and infirm rejoice, for their Saviour is born.

Let the captives rejoice, for their Redeemer is born.

Let slaves rejoice, for their Master is born.

Let free men rejoice, for their Liberator is born.

Let All Christians rejoice, for Jesus Christ is born.

(Augustine of Hippo, 354-430)