First Baha’i Feast in our new home
Erica and I hosted our first Nineteen Day Feast last night at our home in Welwyn since we moved here in February.
The Nineteen Day Feast is the foundation of Baha’i community life, a time when we say prayers together, consult about the affairs of the community, and then have a wonderful social period. It’s a time to refresh ourselves spiritually, to strengthen the bonds of fellowship and friendship, and to think about where are going as a community.
One of the challenges we face is how to meet new people who might be interested to learn about the healing message of Baha’u'llah. We really want to increase our community of interest. To get the ideas flowing, we each took a bunch of Post-It notes and we all had to write down as many ways as we could dream up (making no judgement about whether they were good or bad ideas) of meeting new people - one idea per Post-It.
Then we went round and each of us read out one of our ideas and stuck the note to the piano. (We tried a cork board, but the notes wouldn’t stick. Actually they wouldn’t stick to the piano either.)
We had a flood of ideas. We thought the inter-faith boxing match might not have quite the desired effect, but Aref, our Local Assembly secretary, took all the Post-Its home and is going to type them up into a list that the Local Assembly can consult about at its next meeting.
It was a great pleasure to welcome our fellow Baha’is into our home. “It’s a lovely home,” they said. “So country,” Ellie, one of the Persian ladies, commented. Ellie is an interior designer. I think she meant that it has the feel of a country cottage.
Young Jacob was the focus of much of the attention, as always when he brings his mum to Feast. Even Emma the dog didn’t have to be banished from the sitting room.
Technorati Tags: Nineteen Day Feast, Baha’i, community, prayers, fellowship, friendship, Baha’u'llah, community of interest, inter-faith
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4 comments
I thank you for recommendingthe Badi blog. I have been reading and rereading the survey and it results, Then I sent it to a hard working former LSA member in CA. His reply was that the information was “essentially nothing new,” I strongly disagree,
Is is true that about 15 years ago, so rumor has it, the NSA of UK hired a consulting firm to assess what they (UK bahai community) was doing regarding new membership recruitment, retention, loss?
And the results were goodnews/badnews. Good news, for an organization of your size in comparison with others (religous/nonreligous?) you are doing a good job attracting people, but a poor job retaining them?
IF so, then do think a majority of respondents would answer in the majority opinion of the Badi blog survey?
Sorry, I mean to say the blog “Correlating”. Badi blog is nice, but Correlating is shorter and easier to get a grip on.
It was actually the National Spiritual Assembly of the US (through its National Teaching Committee) that examined the whole recruitment/new members/retention thing. I remember reading the report a few years ago. As you say, the result was good news and bad news.
I don’t recall if the National Assembly hired a consulting firm.
However, things have shifted since then. We have the training institute process, which should nurture the kind of spiritual development and the relationships between the community of interest and the Baha’is that will encourage “retention”.
By the way, I don’t really like that kind of management-speak. The Baha’i Faith is, after all, a religion addressing (amongst other things) people’s spiritual needs, rather than a club or association trying to recruit members.
I understand what you mean. I have spoken to many young new rec/ believers who dislike the “numbers game”. The constant emphasis on the number of new people coming to firesides reported. They said a religion just “is”. We shouldn’t worry whether it increases or not. If it is worthy people will find out by the reputation of its members.
This is definitely the traditional attitude in Japan. “Quality” is expected to be recognized, sooner or later doesn’t matter. The members of any group as personal as a religion, should demonstrate the value of their life by the quality of the life they lead, and then others will be attracted. A religion isn’t like a club, association.
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