Capacities to Acquire and How to Acquire Them

The friends set about this task aware that, notwithstanding their previous victories in the teaching field, plainly they had much to learn about which capacities to acquire and, crucially, how to acquire them. In many ways, the community would learn by doing, and the lessons it learned, once they had been distilled and refined by being applied in diverse settings over time, would eventually be incorporated into educational materials. ^{1 2} It was recognized that certain activities were a natural response to the spiritual needs of a population. Study circles, ³ children’s classes, ⁴ devotional meetings ⁵, and later junior youth groups ⁶ stood out as being of central importance in this regard, and when woven together with related activities, the dynamics generated could give rise to a vibrant pattern of community life. And as the numbers participating in these core activities ⁷ grew, a new dimension was added to their original purpose. They came to serve as portals through which youth, adults and whole families from the wider society could come into an encounter with the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. It was also becoming apparent how practical it was to consider strategies for the work of community building within the context of the “cluster”: ⁸ a geographic area of manageable size with distinct social and economic features. A capacity for preparing simple plans at the level of the cluster began to be cultivated, and out of such plans, programmes for the growth ⁹ of the Faith arose, organized into what would become three-month cycles of activity. ¹⁰ An important point of clarity emerged early on: the movement of individuals through a sequence of courses ¹¹ gives impetus to, and is perpetuated by, the movement of clusters along a continuum of development. ¹² This complementary relationship helped the friends everywhere to assess the dynamics of growth ¹³ in their own surroundings and chart a path towards increased strength. As time went on, it proved fruitful to view what was occurring in a cluster both from the perspective of three educational imperatives ¹⁴—serving children, junior youth, and youth and adults—as well as from the perspective of the cycles of activity essential to the rhythm of growth. ¹⁵ Part-way into a twenty-five-year endeavour, many of the most recognizable features of the growth process we see today were becoming well established. ¹⁶