Dearly loved Friends,
In the wake of the dynamic spirit animating the six-day-long
Counsellors' Conference at the World Centre, now in its final session as
we address you, we take the occasion to announce our decision which has
been the subject of their deliberations: At Ridvan 1996 a global plan of
expansion and consolidation will be launched, to end four years later at
Ridvan 2000.
It is this anticipation that has focused the thoughts of the
seventy-eight Counsellors from the five continents, who have been
conferring together in the presence of the Hands of the Cause of God
Amatu'l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum, `Ali-Akbar Furutan and `Ali-Muhammad Varqa,
the members of the Universal House of Justice and the Counsellor members
of the International Teaching Centre. Their consultations on the
challenges and prospects facing the Bahá'í world community have been of
such calibre and content as to have emboldened our expectations of a
mighty thrust in the growth and development of that community during the
crucial years immediately ahead.
The whole Plan will be announced at Ridvan. However, we wish you to
have some information about it now within the measure of the discussions
which have been taking place at the Counsellors' Conference.
The Four Year Plan will aim at one major accomplishment: a
significant advance in the process of entry by troops. This is to be
achieved through marked progress in the activity and development of the
individual believer, of the institutions, and of the local community.
Keen attention to all three will ensure a greatly expanded, visibly
united, vibrant and cohesive international community by the end of the
twentieth century. The basic requisites can be summarized as follows.
Three areas of development
The first calls for a vitality of the faith of each believer that is
expressed through personal initiative and constancy in teaching the Cause
to others, and through conscientious, individual effort to provide energy
and resources to upbuild the community, to uphold the authority of its
institutions, and to support local and regional plans and teaching
projects. The second requires that local and national Bahá'í
institutions evolve more rapidly into a proper exercise of their
responsibilities as channels of guidance, planners of the teaching work,
developers of human resources, builders of communities, and loving
shepherds of the multitudes. The third, the flourishing of the community
especially at the local level, demands a significant enhancement in
patterns of behaviour by which the collective expression of the virtues
of the individual members and the functioning of the Spiritual Assembly
is manifest in the unity and fellowship of the community and the dynamism
of its activity and growth.
Continental Counsellors
Towards these ends, the work of the Continental Counsellors must
assume new dimensions. Thus, at their conference, they have been
deliberating on such matters as:
- Developments in the mode of the functioning of the Continental
Boards of Counsellors.
- The process for the elaboration of the Plan through the formulation
of derivative plans and strategies at the national, regional, and
local levels. Joint consultations between the Continental
Counsellors and National Spiritual Assemblies will begin immediately
after Ridvan, and the planning process will move quickly to the
regional level, involving Auxiliary Board members, Local Spiritual
Assemblies and committees.
- The development of human resources to meet the needs of a rapidly
expanding community. Large-scale growth necessitates sustained
measures of consolidation. The urgent requirement is for formally
conducted programmes of training through institutes and other
centres of learning, in the establishment and operation of which the
Counsellors and Auxiliary Board members will become more intimately
involved.
- Effective approaches to the raising up and consolidation of Local
Spiritual Assemblies. In accordance with the objective of fostering
the maturation of these Assemblies, a greater effort is required
to uphold a vital principle, which is that the responsibility for
electing a Local Spiritual Assembly rests primarily on the Bahá'ís
in the locality. The Auxiliary Board members and their assistants
are to increase their efforts to improve the general understanding
of this principle and will devote more attention to assisting the
development of Local Assemblies. As of Ridvan 1997, all Local
Spiritual Assemblies throughout the world will have to be elected
on the First Day of Ridvan.
- Further means for the development of local Bahá'í communities. The
needs in this respect will be met in part by an immediate increase
in the membership of the Auxiliary Boards for Protection to equal
that of the Auxiliary Boards for Propagation, so that Protection Board
members can directly and systematically assist on a wide scale the
fundamental activities of the community, such as the spiritual
nurturing of individual believers, the participation of women in all
aspects of community life, the observance of the Nineteen Day Feasts
and Holy Days, the holding of children's classes, the fostering of
youth activities.
Three inseparable participants
The seven objectives specified in previous Plans describe essential,
interacting directions that must advance simultaneously into the
foreseeable future. The Four Year Plan's aim at accelerating the process
of entry by troops identifies a necessity at this stage in the progress of
the Cause and in the state of human society. With this perspective, the
three inseparable participants in the evolution of the new World Order -- the individual, the institutions, and the community must now demonstrate
more tangibly than ever before their capacity and willingness to embrace
masses of new adherents, to effect the spiritual and administrative
transformation of thousands upon thousands, and, above all, to multiply the
army of knowledgeable, consecrated teachers of a Faith whose emergence from
obscurity must be registered on the consciousness of countless multitudes
throughout the earth. These are among the detailed considerations that
have occupied the deliberations of the Continental Counsellors, who, upon
their return home and in the course of their work, will have occasion to
share the results of their conference with the friends.
An auspicious beginning for the new Plan will largely depend on the
results of the current one, which will end in just a few months. The
adequacy of these results will owe much to the degree to which the Local
Spiritual Assemblies and the friends carry out the directions of their
National Spiritual Assemblies, the generals of every Plan. Time is
slipping away. This reality should prod us all to maximum action. Hence,
in preparation for what beckons us on the near horizon, we cannot, we must
not, hesitate to expend every energy to bring the Three Year Plan to a
successful conclusion. The urgency which intensifies our desire for such
an outcome is not merely pride of victory, gratifying as that may be. There are divine deadlines to be met. Our work is intended not only to
increase the size and consolidate the foundations of our community, but
more particularly to exert a positive influence on the affairs of the
entire human race. At so crucial a moment in world affairs, we must not
fail in our duty to take timely action on the goals set before us in the
Three Year Plan.
With the full fervour of our expectant hearts, we call upon you all,
individually and collectively, to arise to the summons of the Lord of Hosts
to teach His Cause. Do so with love, faith and courage; and the doors of
heaven will open wide to pour forth benedictions upon your efforts.
With loving Bahá'í greetings
[signed: The Universal House of Justice]
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