The ACC Community Engagement Conference features community thought leaders who are addressing the needs of the nation using the strengths already in their communities. The Conference includes face-to-face convening, an opportunity to speak into ACC Community Engagement’s strategic directions and priorities, and a forum to showcase best practices.

Speakers this year include:

Jarrod Mckenna

Jarrod McKenna is the co-founder of First Home Project, a community welcoming, housing and “giving a hand up not a hand-out” to recently arrived refugees, is the Teaching Pastor at Cornerstone Church in Perth, was a part of initiating the #LoveMakesAWay movement, and is a peace award winning nonviolent social change trainer, working primarily in the Middle East and Eastern Europe when not at home. 

Paul Bartlett

Paul and Annette Bartlett took on the role of Senior Leaders of Lighthouse in 2000.  Lighthouse sees things differently. They exist for people. They’re here to give. Not to get. They are multifaceted, multi purpose, multi platform. Lighthouse provides a number of community innovations including Lighthouse Youth Initiative and Lighthouse Community Kitchen. Their OBSESSION is to love their community. No strings attached. Lighthouse largely consists of volunteers ready and willing to do whatever it takes so that others can have the best life possible. Paul is also the National Leader for Community Engagement in Australian Christian Churches, overseeing some 1100 churches. Paul’s other roles include being the President of Cedars Christian College – a school of over 600 students – as well as the Chaplain to NBL basketball team, the Wollongong Hawks. Paul and Annette are both personal development coaches to many leaders and professionals in the broader community specialising in the area of leadership and vision development, team building and organisational change.

Lisa Sharon Harper

Lisa Sharon Harper, Sojourners’ senior director of mobilizing, was the founding executive director of New York Faith & Justice—an organization at the hub of a new ecumenical movement to end poverty in New York City. In that capacity, she helped establish Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, a citywide collaborative effort of faith leaders committed to leveraging the power of their constituencies and their moral authority in partnership with communities bearing the weight of environmental injustice. She also organized faith leaders to speak out for immigration reform and organized the South Bronx Conversations for Change, a dialogue-to-change project between police and the community. She earned her master’s in human rights from Columbia University in New York City. Harper serves on the board of directors of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good and is a member of Metro Hope Church in New York City, an Evangelical Covenant Church.