Hawke’s Bay cluster reaches third milestone of growth

May 21

May 21 Hawke’s Bay cluster reaches third milestone of growth

The North Island Regional Bahá’í Council announced the Hawke’s Bay cluster’s attainment to the third milestone in an email to Local Spiritual Assemblies and groups on 16 May 2022.

Dearly loved friends,

The North Island Regional Bahá’í Council sends you its love at the beginning of a nine-year spiritual enterprise aimed at the release of the society-building power of the Faith. It is with great joy that the Council shares with you the news that the Hawke’s Bay cluster has reached the third milestone along the continuum of growth, this first of many goals our region will achieve in this plan. We yield thanks to the Blessed Beauty that our collective endeavours for the next nine years have been launched with so auspicious a start.

Describing the third milestone of growth, the Universal House of Justice states:

For the movement of a population to have come this far demonstrates that the process which brought it about is strong enough to achieve and sustain a high degree of participation in all aspects of the capacity-building endeavour and manage the complexity entailed. This is another milestone for the friends to pass, the third in succession since the process of growth in a cluster was begun. It denotes the appearance of a system for extending, in centre after centre, a dynamic pattern of community life that can engage a people — men and women, youth and adults — in the work of their own spiritual and social transformation. This has already come about in around two hundred clusters, covering a range of socio-economic circumstances, and we anticipate that, by the conclusion of the coming Plan, it will be observable in several hundred more. It is a future to which the friends labouring in thousands of clusters elsewhere can aspire.

The cluster was able to achieve this goal through devoted efforts of a growing number of friends dedicated to the betterment of their communities and supported by collaborative efforts of the three Local Spiritual Assemblies, Area Teaching Committee, institute coordinators and Auxiliary Board members serving the cluster. The friends in the cluster have been able to give attention to both dimensions of the process of growth: working in neighbourhood settings with increasing intensity amongst a receptive population, and working across the cluster through networks of friends, neighbours, classmates and co-workers.

One of the most noteworthy developments which led to consistent growth in the cluster has been the rhythm of expansion and consolidation which has solidified into uninterrupted three-monthly cycles of expansion, consolidation, and reflection. Children’s festivals, camps for junior youth, studies of the training institute for youth and adults with various degrees of intensity, and other whanau spaces have all become key features of the cycle of growth. At all points, a scheme of coordination growing in strength is learning to follow the path of development for each individual involved in the community-building process.

The friends serving the cluster, in consultation with the Counsellor, Auxiliary Board members, and the three Local Spiritual Assemblies, have been able to identify a number of specific capacities which have enabled the third milestone to be reached:

The capacity to adapt to a substantial increase in complexity;
The capacity to work with an expanding pool of workers;
The capacity to sustain intense activity by a nucleus of friends in a growing number of settings;
The capacity to seek out receptivity within a distinct population;
The capacity to offer the courses of the training institute in a variety of settings with increasing levels of organisation;
The capacity of the Area Teaching Committee to coordinate activity across the cluster at a heightened level of functioning;
The capacity of Local Spiritual Assemblies to create a learning environment in collaboration with cluster agencies;
The capacity to operate in a mode of learning;
The capacity to initiate social action at the grassroots.

There are now ten distinct nuclei of friends working in different settings in the cluster, with patterns of intensity becoming well developed in Flaxmere, Napier Hill, and Raureka, and others working toward the same goal. Attached is the narrative produced by the friends in Flaxmere, describing the progress they have made thus far.

In the most recent Cluster Growth Profile from April, there are a total of 41 ongoing core activities in the cluster, including

21 devotional meetings with 87 participants, 44 of whom are friends of the Faith;
5 children’s classes with 22 participants, half of whom are friends of the Faith;
6 junior youth groups with 33 participants, 29 of whom are friends of the Faith
9 study circles with 27 participants, 4 of whom are friends of the Faith.

There is also a healthy pyramid of resources, with 84 souls having completed the first book of the main sequence, and 32 having completed Book 7. Given the relative fewness in numbers of the enrolled Bahá’í population (3 youth and 57 adults), this level of activity and training is a substantial achievement, and a solid platform from which significant further growth can be anticipated. The Council hopes that other communities may draw reassurance from the fact that even a cluster with relatively few Bahá’ís can move rapidly when the right conditions are created through study and application of the guidance of the Universal House of Justice.

As the cluster moves past the third milestone, the ongoing development and expression of the systems and capacities required for the next stages of growth will continue to be the focus of all the friends labouring for its advancement. Capacities now nascent will grow and develop as the cluster continues to advance. We hope that what has been learned will prove valuable to each of your communities as your clusters also move toward their next milestones of growth, and the Council will share what has been learnt by the friends in Hawke's Bay with each cluster in due course. As the first part of this sharing, please find attached the narrative produced by the friends in Flaxmere, describing the progress they have made thus far. Beyond that, we hope this news coming so soon into the Nine Year Plan will inspire achievements in your communities as the friends call to mind the guidance of the beloved Universal House of Justice:

But regardless of the extent to which Bahá’í community life embraces those who reside in a particular area—regardless, even, of the intensity of a programme of growth in a cluster or the level of activity in a neighbourhood or village—the challenge facing the friends serving at the grassroots is essentially the same in every place. They must be able to read their own reality and ask: what, in light of the possibilities and requirements at hand, would be fitting objectives to pursue in the coming cycle or series of cycles? … Much can be learned from the experience of the friends in similar clusters, for a community that is a step further along the same path can provide valuable insights about the goal to strive for next. As the friends ponder what is before them, they will readily see that for every community there is a goal in reach, and for every goal a path to reach it. Looking ahead on this path, might we not perceive Bahá’u’lláh Himself, the reins of humanity’s affairs in one hand, His other beckoning all to hasten, hasten?

Arohanui,

The North Island Regional Bahá'í Council
Te Kaunihera Bahá'í ā-Rohe o Te Ika-a-Māui

Below — scenes from the summer initiative in Hawke’s Bay. This collage was published in the National Assembly’s Annual Report for 178 B.E. According to the Annual Report: Hawke’s Bay hosted the first non-Auckland Summer Initiative, with over 100 people participating — a number well beyond expectations. It was so successful that after two days of outreach, the numbers surpassed the goal for the entire campaign. The initiative was powerful for its spirit of love and unity, of one human family coming together.