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Excerpts from Letter of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada following the February 2006 Institutional Meeting
The Universal House of Justice has received your email letter dated 8 March 2006 (ref. 34857) describing the impressive results of your recent institutional meeting. The spirit that animated the gathering and the insights acquired by the participants offer much promise for the progress of the Faith in Canada over the next five years. It was heartening to learn that the consultations resulted in the goal of raising to 46 the number of clusters that will have intensive programmes of growth. We have been asked to provide the following comments.
One can well envision how over 40 intensive programmes of growth, each yielding dozens of new enrolments in a year, would transform the Canadian Bahá’í community. Such a bold objective cannot be achieved merely by adopting the outer form of the activities of the Five Year Plan. Rather, a true change in culture is required. An eager embrace of the approaches explored in the institute courses, a diligent cultivation of community life through the multiplication of core activities, and an audacious outreach and effective teaching among receptive populations are some of the many elements of the Plan described in the 27 December 2005 message that must be integrated into a single, coherent pattern of action through the determined efforts of the friends.
At this moment in the fortunes of the Faith, no believer can regard passive acceptance of the activities of the Plan as an adequate response to the needs of the hour. All can find some part to play in the multifaceted requirements of their clusters. Perhaps most critical is the need for those who, having acquired the capacity to serve as tutors, will arise to accompany participants in the institute courses "in their initial attempts to perform acts of service until they, too, are ready to start their own study circles and help others do the same", thereby serving "to multiply the number of active supporters of the Faith in a self-perpetuating manner"&
(Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada, 1 May 2006)