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Learning to Be Systematic

In the Riḍván 1998 message the Universal House of Justice called on Bahá’ís to approach their work systematically, referring to systematization as a “necessary mode of functioning animated by the urgency to act”:

Our hopes, our goals, our possibilities of moving forward can all be realized through concentrating our endeavors on the major aim of the Divine Plan at its current stage—that is, to effect a significant advance in the process of entry by troops. This challenge can be met through persistent effort patiently pursued. Entry by troops is a possibility well within the grasp of our community. Unremitting faith, prayer, the promptings of the soul, Divine assistance—these are among the essentials of progress in any Bahá’í undertaking. But also of vital importance to bringing about entry by troops is a realistic approach, systematic action. There are no shortcuts. Systematization ensures consistency of lines of action based on well-conceived plans. In a general sense, it implies an orderliness of approach in all that pertains to Bahá’í service, whether in teaching or administration, in individual or collective endeavor. While allowing for individual initiative and spontaneity, it suggests the need to be clear-headed, methodical, efficient, constant, balanced and harmonious. Systematization is a necessary mode of functioning animated by the urgency to act.^[1]

The message went on to highlight the essential role that the training institute plays in systematically developing the human resources that will sustain and accelerate the expansion and consolidation of the Faith. In a sense, the development of human resources can be thought of as the first act of systematization on the part of Bahá’í communities. This step was initiated in December 1995 when the House of Justice introduced the concept of the training institute, related it to the earlier teaching institute and charged the Counsellors with assisting National Spiritual Assemblies everywhere in establishing training institutes at the national and regional levels. How this call for systematization came about is explained succinctly in the message of 26 December 1995 to the Counsellors:

During the Nine Year Plan, the Universal House of Justice called upon National Spiritual Assemblies in countries where large-scale expansion was taking place to establish teaching institutes to meet the deepening needs of the thousands who were entering the Faith. At that time, the emphasis was on acquiring a physical facility to which group after group of newly enrolled believers would be invited to attend deepening courses. Over the years, in conjunction with these institutes, and often independent of them, a number of courses—referred to, for example, as weekend institutes, five-day institutes, and nine-day institutes—were developed for the purpose of helping the friends gain an understanding of the fundamental verities of the Faith and arise to serve it. These efforts have contributed significantly to the enriching of the spiritual life of the believers and will undoubtedly continue in the future.

With the growth in the number of enrollments, it has become apparent that such occasional courses of instruction and the informal activities of community life, though important, are not sufficient as a means of human resource development, for they have resulted in only a relatively small band of active supporters of the Cause. These believers, no matter how dedicated, no matter how willing to make sacrifices, cannot attend to the needs of hundreds, much less thousands, of fledgling local communities. Systematic attention has to be given by Bahá’í institutions to training a significant number of believers and assisting them in serving the Cause according to their God-given talents and capacities.

The development of human resources on a large scale requires that the establishment of institutes be viewed in a new light. In many regions, it has become imperative to create institutes as organizational structures dedicated to systematic training. The purpose of such training is to endow ever-growing contingents of believers with the spiritual insights, the knowledge, and the skills needed to carry out the many tasks of accelerated expansion and consolidation, including the teaching and deepening of a large number of people—adults, youth and children. This purpose can best be achieved through well-organized, formal programs consisting of courses that follow appropriately designed curricula.^[2]

An account of the historical developments leading up to the efforts to establish training institutes worldwide during the Four Year Plan is discussed in some detail in Chapter 9 of Century of Light. The chapter offers insight into why human resource development should have been the first area of Bahá’í activity to receive systematic attention. It will be helpful to quote from the document at length.

As believers from urban centers set out on sustained campaigns to reach the mass of the world’s peoples living in villages and rural areas, they encountered a receptivity to Bahá’u’lláh’s message far beyond anything they had imagined possible. While the response usually took forms very different from the ones with which the teachers had been familiar, the new declarants were eagerly welcomed.…

At the heart of the development, as has been the case in the life of the Cause from the outset, was the commitment made by the individual believer. Already, during the ministry of Shoghi Effendi, far-sighted persons had taken the initiative to reach indigenous populations in such countries as Uganda and Indonesia. During the Nine Year Plan, ever larger numbers of such teachers were drawn into the work, particularly in India, several countries in Africa, and most regions of Latin America, as well as in islands of the Pacific, Alaska and among the native peoples of Canada and the rural black population of the southern United States.…

Even so, it soon became apparent that individual initiative alone, however inspired and energetic, could not respond adequately to the opportunities opening up. The result was to launch Bahá’í communities on a wide range of collective teaching and proclamation projects recalling the heroic days of the dawn-breakers. Teams of ardent teachers found that it was now possible to introduce the message of the Faith not merely to a succession of inquirers, but to entire groups and even whole communities. The tens of thousands became hundreds of thousands. The Faith’s growth meant that members of Spiritual Assemblies, whose experience had been limited to confirming the understanding of the Faith of individual applicants raised in cultures of doubt or religious fanaticism, had to adjust to expressions of belief on the part of whole groups of people to whom religious awareness and response were normal features of daily life.^[3]

The chapter goes on to explain that the large influx of new believers during the period brought with it unprecedented challenges, not the least of which were deepening these friends and adapting to a wide range of cultures and modes of thought. It then continues by saying,

Initially, such problems proved stimulating as both Bahá’í institutions and individual believers struggled to find new ways of looking at situations—new ways, indeed, of understanding important passages in the Bahá’í Writings themselves. Determined efforts were made to respond to the guidance of the World Centre that expansion and consolidation are twin processes that must go hand in hand. Where hoped for results did not readily materialize, however, a measure of discouragement frequently set in. The initial rapid rise in enrollment rates slowed markedly in many countries, tempting some Bahá’í institutions and communities to turn back to more familiar activities and more accessible publics.

The principal effect of the setbacks, however, was that they brought home to communities that the high expectations of the early years were in some respects quite unrealistic. Although the easy successes of the initial teaching activities were encouraging, they did not, by themselves, build a Bahá’í community life that could meet the needs of its new members and be self-generating. Rather, pioneers and new believers alike faced questions for which Bahá’í experience in Western lands—or even Iran—offered few answers. How were Local Spiritual Assemblies to be established—and once established, how were they to function—in areas where large numbers of new believers had joined the Cause overnight, simply on the strength of their spiritual apprehension of its truth? How, in societies dominated by men since the dawn of time, were women to be accorded an equal voice? How was the education of large numbers of children to be systematically addressed in cultural situations where poverty and illiteracy prevailed? What priorities should guide Bahá’í moral teaching, and how could these objectives best be related to prevailing indigenous conventions? How could a vibrant community life be cultivated that would stimulate the spiritual growth of its members? What priorities, too, should be set with respect to the production of Bahá’í literature, particularly given the sudden explosion that had taken place in the number of languages represented in the community? How could the integrity of the Bahá’í institution of the Nineteen Day Feast be maintained, while opening this vital activity to the enriching influence of diverse cultures? And, in all areas of concern, how were the necessary resources to be recruited, funded, and coordinated?

The pressure of these urgent and interlocking challenges launched the Bahá’í world on a learning process that has proved to be as important as the expansion itself. It is safe to say that during these years there was virtually no type of teaching activity, no combination of expansion, consolidation and proclamation, no administrative option, no effort at cultural adaptation that was not being energetically tried in some part of the Bahá’í world. The net result of the experience was an intensive education of a great part of the Bahá’í community in the implications of the mass teaching work, an education that could have occurred in no other way. By its very nature, the process was largely local and regional in focus, qualitative rather than quantitative in its gains, and incremental rather than large-scale in the progress achieved. Had it not been for the painstaking, always difficult and often frustrating consolidation work pursued during these years, however, the subsequent strategy of systematizing the promotion of entry by troops would have had very little with which to work.^[4]

This learning process took three decades to come to fruition. Century of Light describes the significance of this period in Bahá’í history:

The significance of these three decades of struggle, learning and sacrifice became apparent when the moment arrived to devise a global Plan that would capitalize on the insights gained and the resources that had been developed. The Bahá’í community that set out on the Four Year Plan in 1996 was a very different one from the eager, but new and still inexperienced body of believers who, in 1964, had ventured out on the first of such undertakings that were no longer sustained by the guiding hand of Shoghi Effendi. By 1996, it had become possible to see all of the distinct strands of the enterprise as integral parts of one coherent whole.^[5]

At the outset of the Four Year Plan, then, the Bahá’í world was able to capitalize on the insights it had gained during the preceding period as it focused on establishing a network of training institutes as a means of systematizing the work in the area of expansion and consolidation. Laying this foundation was the first act of systematization. Through it mechanisms were put in place to develop the human resources of the Faith. In its message of 26 November 1999 to the Bahá’ís of the world, the House of Justice praised the accomplishments that were achieved putting this network into place and alluded to the next area of Bahá’í activity to receive systematic attention, starting with the Twelve Month Plan:

It is essential that, during the one-year effort, national and regional institutes everywhere bring into full operation the programs and systems that they have now devised. National communities should enter the Five Year Plan confident that the acquisition of knowledge, qualities and skills of service by large contingents of believers, with the aid of a sequence of courses, will proceed unhindered. Ample attention must also be given to further systematization of teaching efforts, whether undertaken by the individual or directed by the institutions. In this respect, the International Teaching Centre has identified certain patterns of systematic expansion and consolidation for relatively small geographical areas consisting of a manageable number of localities.^[6]

A letter dated 31 July 2002 written on behalf of the House of Justice to an individual believer described what this systemization entailed in concrete terms:

With institutes well positioned to address the challenges of human resource development, the stage was set to further systematize the teaching efforts worldwide. In its 9 January 2001 message regarding the Five Year Plan, the Universal House of Justice asked that this systemization take place in the context of a “cluster”—a small geographic area that would enable the friends to think about the growth of the Faith on a manageable scale and to design and implement plans close to the grassroots of the community. As a first step in the execution of the Plan, Bahá’í institutions set out to map their countries with the aim of dividing them into clusters and categorizing them according to their current stage of development. Invariably, this undertaking served to galvanize the believers, for they were able to evaluate in realistic terms their strengths and weaknesses and to see with striking clarity a way forward. The resulting plans of action were thus able to envision the systematic deployment of the avowed supporters of the Faith, whose ranks were swelling through the efforts of the institute, to establish a pattern of growth based on three core activities—study circles, devotional meetings and children’s classes. As this pattern has unfolded in clusters around the world, an increasing number are gradually reaching the stage where they are ready to launch intensive programs for the expansion and consolidation of the Faith.^[7]

As indicated above, the concept of the cluster was introduced at the beginning of the Five Year Plan to assist in the systematization of teaching. Once communities had been divided into clusters, the institutions of the Faith were challenged to learn how to effectively deploy the human resources being generated by the training institute in the field of service. In this way, the systematization of teaching efforts, and before it of human resource development, has been a central feature of the global Plans of the Faith since the Four Year Plan.

And as the friends and institutions have proceeded earnestly along the path traced out by the Universal House of Justice, they have begun to internalize and integrate the lessons and experiences of systemization called for in the global Plans. They have come to realize, for instance, that an essential requirement of systematic action is to arrive at a unified vision of growth for their communities and regions. The House of Justice has noted in the statement “The Institution of the Counsellors,”

At the outset of the work of the year or at times when new plans are being formulated, it is often useful to arrange for consultations between the Auxiliary Board members and the National or Regional Teaching Committees or Regional Councils before these plans are given final definition. A highly fruitful practice has developed in many parts of the world whereby members of a number of institutions and agencies of a country, or a region thereof, come together in a meeting of consultation to reach a common vision for the growth of their community and discuss strategies for action. These “institutional meetings” help to steer the friends away from thinking merely in terms of the mechanics of projects and to infuse their plans and subsequent action with the spirit of the Faith. They do much to reinforce the confidence of the institutions in devising the teaching strategies that will best serve the needs of their respective regions and in mobilizing the support of the Local Assemblies and the believers.^[8]

Further, it is becoming clearer, especially among Auxiliary Board members and their assistants, that a vision for the growth of a cluster or region can only emerge from a far-greater vision of such realities as the greatness of this Day, the power of divine assistance, the potential inherent in every human being, and the powers that become available to the believers when they truly unite and work in a spirit of oneness:

To labor in the arena of service, the individual draws upon his love for Bahá’u’lláh, the power of the Covenant, the dynamics of prayer, the inspiration and education derived from regular study of the Holy Texts, and the transformative forces that operate upon his soul as he strives to behave in accordance with the divine laws and principles. Therefore, these are all themes of an ongoing relationship between the Auxiliary Board members and the believers.^[9]

Evolving a vision of growth, it is being recognized, is fundamentally a spiritual process, one that implies ever-increasing consciousness of the spiritual forces released by Bahá’u’lláh. What is more, the friends everywhere are coming to the understanding that, in developing a vision of growth and the strategies to bring structure to it, some knowledge of possibilities, resources and even methods is necessary. A natural consequence has been the increasing number of concrete plans of action that “take into account the particular resources of the believers” and “the capacity of the local Bahá’í communities.”^[10]

In this connection, the believers and their institutions have also taken to heart the admonition of the House of Justice that progress “cannot be achieved by a mere series of spasmodic, uncoordinated exertions, no matter how enthusiastic”^[11] and have learned the value of continuity of action. The concept of a line of action has proven particularly helpful in this respect. The House of Justice has explained in the context of intensive programs of growth: “The best approach is to formulate plans for a few months at a time, beginning with one or two lines of action and gradually growing in complexity.”^[12] A line of action consists of a sequence of projects and activities, each building on the previous one and preparing the way for further advances. In this light, the role of periodic meetings of consultation to “reflect on issues, consider adjustments, and maintain enthusiasm and unity of thought”^[13] has been crucial to the friends’ efforts to pursue lines of action and build on their accomplishments:

Arrangements can then be made for the lessons learned from this experience to be discussed with the active supporters of the Faith in each region, helping them to identify the approaches and methods applicable to their specific conditions and to set in motion a systematic process of community development. This process should be one in which the friends review their successes and difficulties, adjust and improve their methods accordingly, and learn, and move forward unhesitatingly.^[14]

Towards the end of the Five Year Plan, this guidance finally gave rise to the organization of intensive programs of growth in terms of cycles of growth, a matter which is currently the object of learning in cluster after cluster as an increasing number around the world reach this stage in their development. The following passage from a letter dated 19 October 2005 written to one National Spiritual Assembly summarizes the overall learning to date:

The promising pattern of action emerging in clusters throughout the world integrates individual initiative and community endeavor in order to embrace an ever-wider circle of people and teach receptive souls. This pattern appears wherever a sizeable number of individuals who are moving through the sequence of institute courses make a conscious effort to translate what they are learning into action, undertaking specific acts of service that challenge them to draw upon the knowledge and insights they are gaining and to sharpen the skills and abilities they are developing through the courses. One of the most noteworthy outcomes of the institute courses is the emergence of an ever-increasing number of tutors who, having themselves studied the courses and struggled to walk a path of service, engage others in the study of the sequence, instilling in them the same desire to arise and serve. In this way, a broad base is laid for universal participation, which remains one of the most fundamental goals of the Bahá’í community. You have, yourselves, witnessed this development in the few clusters that have reached an advanced stage of growth.

You have, likewise, observed how the conditions thus created in such clusters have made it possible to launch intensive programs of growth, in which large numbers of friends eagerly participate in the learning that takes place through successive cycles of activity seeking to integrate well-coordinated collective action with effective individual initiative. And you are equally aware of how interaction among three entities—the institute, the Auxiliary Boards, and the Area Teaching Committee—in close collaboration with responsive Local Spiritual Assemblies, can help carry the friends from one cycle to another and accelerate the learning process.^[15]

And the passage below written to another National Assembly points to some of the challenges ahead:

The pattern of activity that emerges from one cycle of the program to the next will, however, prove effective only if the tendency to fall into certain habits is avoided. Among these are an undue reliance on proclamation efforts in the intensive teaching phase; a proliferation of core activities that does not serve the purpose of involving a growing number of seekers; a disproportionate focus on increasing short-lived contacts that loses sight of the need to systematically teach those who have shown interest in the Faith; and an overemphasis on the administrative activities occupying veteran Bahá’ís as enthusiastic new believers are being introduced to the disciplines and functions of the community.

To ensure the successful unfoldment of the process of action and reflection that should run throughout the successive cycles, the friends will want to keep at least two points in mind. First, having dedicated an enormous amount of time and energy towards studying a sequence of courses aimed at helping them carry out certain acts of service, they should now strive to apply what they have learned in the teaching field. Specifically, if the content of the courses explores fundamental concepts related to direct teaching, it is only natural that they would seek to translate these into action. If a home visit, to take another example, is defined in the courses as an opportunity to enter into a deep conversation on spiritual matters, then it should not be reduced to a mere social call in which the Faith may not even be mentioned. In short, the educational process in which the friends have engaged over so many weeks and months should give shape to the individual and collective activities they now undertake.

Second, the meetings of reflection called at various intervals during the cycles should serve to reinforce an attitude of learning among the participants in the program so that any fear of failure or criticism gives way to the joy of earnest striving. To achieve this, the friends involved in organizing the meetings should recognize that guided, participatory discussion can prove more instructive than elaborate presentations and prolonged theoretical analyses. A careful review of vital statistics, which highlight weaknesses that require remedial attention and point to strengths that can be built upon in the next cycle of activity, will go far in facilitating the planning process.^[16]