To the Local Spiritual Assemblies and cluster agencies serving in the Northeast
Dearly loved Friends,
The Regional Baha’i Council and Regional Training Institute Board met in April with our Counsellor to reflect on the victories won across the region during the first year of the Nine Year Plan and assess our reality in terms of the demands ahead. We noted that there were 503 educational activities: 103 children’s classes, 57 junior youth groups, and 349 study circles. We consulted about how our region can further the Plan’s single aim–– to release the society-building power of the Cause. In light of the guidance from the Universal House of Justice that strengthening the presence and prevalence of the training institute acts as “a potent means for the society-building power of the Faith to find release,” we arrived at a unified goal: to double the number of study circles, children’s classes, and junior youth groups across the region to 1,000 by Ridvan 2024. We ask all institutions and agencies to strive to attain this goal.
For all clusters and communities, this will require a careful reading of reality to assess possibilities for growth so activities in each educational imperative can increase. There is not a
rigid formula for how growth can and should occur; instead, there are principles to consider when planning to double the activities in the educational imperatives: study circles, children’s
classes, and junior youth groups.
The first among these is that all institutions and agencies will need to learn about maintaining, cycle after cycle, a steady flow of participants into and through the courses of the institute and
into the field of service. We cannot rely on the same small cohort of friends to sustain twice as many activities; we can only double our activities by raising new teachers, animators, and tutors, not only among the Baha’is but also with those from the wider community who are assisting us to build a better world. This will happen as institute courses are offered cycle after cycle, with particular emphasis on Books 1-7. Naturally, raising new tutors will be a necessary component of our focus.
Broadly, the aim of offering a seamless spiritual educational experience indicates the need to learn in every cluster how to offer children’s classes of every grade level and junior youth
groups for every age group. Agencies and institutions might aim to connect every Baha’i child and junior youth to a class or junior youth group. Nuclei need to continue focusing on the critical
question of raising local protagonists from the wider community so that the children’s classes and junior youth groups can expand their reach. We also hope that institutions and agencies
understand that serving in new neighborhoods is vital for this next year, as these places where “receptivity wells up” will offer unique, essential opportunities for growth as well as lessons that can be shared widely.
In addition, it will be important that, during the first cycle, all institutions and agencies working towards this goal will more deeply familiarize themselves with the attached document, Training Institutes: Attaining a Higher Level of Functioning, compiled by the International Teaching Center. This document explores the strategies and approaches that will help our activities grow over the next year.
Throughout our consultations as regional institutions, we also reflected on the victories of the previous regional devotional campaign and how, through the unified efforts of individuals and
institutions, audacious numerical goals were achieved, and much was learned about strengthening our reliance on prayer in all settings. We know the qualities developed during the devotional campaign will aid us in this campaign to strengthen the activities of the training institute, qualities such as perseverance, creativity, united effort, and mutual support. Just as the conversation around devotionals permeated every space–Feasts, agency meetings, Assembly meetings–leading to an increased consciousness and energy in the entire region around the goal, we pray that this same energy can be garnered around this new goal for doubling the educational activities.
At a recent Cluster Reflection Gathering in our region, the goal of doubling was shared, along with the following metaphor:
Sometimes, when big goals are shared, it can be a lot to take in. After all, we oftentimes like to think of growth as linear, happening at a steady pace over time. However, we can also think of the way certain plants grow. For a long time, it can look as if growth is happening gradually while the plant deepens its roots in the ground. Maybe a shoot emerges from the soil slowly. And then, suddenly, when the conditions are right, that plant might shoot up rapidly and experience exponential growth. We see that the conditions are ready in the Northeast for us to see rapid growth in the institute’s activities.
We feel so blessed to learn alongside cluster and local agencies and institutions whose guidance, accompaniment, and love will be so critical in assisting the friends in the region towards achieving this goal. The ultimate impact of our efforts this year will be the strengthening of “vibrant, outward-looking communities” in the Northeast, bringing more and more hearts
closer to the Blessed Beauty and applying His Teachings towards the building of a unified world.
With loving Baha’i greetings,
Regional Baha’i Council of the Northeastern States
Regional Training Institute Board of the Northeastern States
Marie McNair, Secretary
Aleah Douglas, Secretary