About.

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Converge Oceania is a community of youth-orientated agencies that exist to support and equip the church in Australia and New Zealand to continue to reach and disciple young people. 

 

We do this through prayerfully and practically supporting each other’s ministries, as well as collaborating on projects that will enhance and shape youth ministry practise within the church.

 

These projects include an annual conference, regular online gatherings called Converge Conversations, and the Your Story research project.

 

Converge is led by a core team of experienced youth ministry practitioners, who include Naomi Swindon, Neville Bartley, Mel Hanger, Steve Forward, Glyn Henman, AJ Heijns and Adrian Blenkinsop.

 

Amongst the Converge community there are a diverse range of youth and young adult thinkers and practitioners, from agencies and denominations including Scripture Union Australia, Scripture Union NSW, Baptist churches, Ridley College, ACOM, Veta Youth, Bible Society Australia, Scripture Union NZ, Access the Story, the Uniting Church, Christian Schools Australia, the Lutheran Church, Schools Ministry Group, the Salvation Army, as well as chaplains, youth leaders and senior ministers.

 

Our Story.

 

Converge Oceania was drawn together by Adrian Blenkinsop during his time as National Youth Ministry Director for Bible Society Australia in 2016, and over those first few years the community explored the possibility of doing a national research project that would support the church to better understand and engage young people. 

 

After a period of consultation, the common question that was decided on was ‘what’s shaping young people’s understanding and experience of God’. Our target group was youth aged 16 to 20, and we wanted to hear from those who identified as Christian, and those who didn’t. 

 

In 2019 we commissioned Christian Research Australia to do a literature review for us, to determine if any research currently existed on this. The review found that in fact, there had been no research done in this area, and there was a real need for it.

 

We invited Graham Stanton from Ridley College, and Rowan Lewis from ACOM to take the lead for the research project in early 2020, and they began to compile the research questions and pilot them with focus groups of young people around Australia. Then Covid hit and we put everything on hold.

 

In early 2022, we hit ‘GO’, and the Your Story online survey went live. Over the next 12 months 439 young people completed the extensive survey, and from mid-2023 the team of researchers and coders began to analyse the stories and write the reports. The initial report was released in November 2023 at our Converge Oceania Conference in Melbourne, and the final report was released at a series of Converge conferences across Australia in November 2024.

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Throughout 2025 we will be running workshops and training events across Australia exploring the findings and their implications.