Emerging insights from the field: Teaching & Enrolment (Part 2)
This article forms the second part of a short series titled “Emerging insights from the field: Teaching & Enrolment.”
In its message to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors dated 30 December 2021, the Universal House of Justice offered the following guidance:
“We ask you and your auxiliaries to help the believers, wherever they reside, reflect periodically on effective ways of teaching the Faith in their surroundings, and to fan within their hearts a passion for teaching that will attract the confirmations of the Divine Kingdom. Souls who have been given the blessing of faith have a natural wish to share this gift through conversations with relatives, friends, classmates, co-workers, and those previously unmet, seeking in every place and at every moment a hearing ear. Different settings and circumstances lend themselves to different approaches, and the friends should be occupied in an ongoing process of learning about what is most effective in the place where they are.”
In response to the above guidance, members of the Auxiliary Board have compiled a learning document that gathers experiences and emerging patterns observed across various clusters and communities.
Shared below is the next contribution in this series, drawing from the experience of Hawke’s Bay and Manurewa. The insights emerging from these settings point to further areas of learning, including how study circles are serving as spaces where the possibility of enrolment can be explored naturally, and how tutors are accompanying youth and others as they navigate considerations of identity and belonging. These experiences also reflect ongoing efforts to recognise and address barriers that may influence the enrolment process.
Hawke’s Bay
There have been 6 declarations since Ridván 2024 across the cluster. The friends are unapologetic in sharing the teachings of the Faith in their neighbourhood, and sometimes this is met with resistance, but they are resilient and as direct as possible.
There is strength in accompanying groups of youth who are friends to move closer to Bahá’u’lláh. A group of youth recently enrolled together after going through the junior youth programme and then into the main sequence together. Young people under 25 are tending to join the Faith in groups. Specific spaces – Question and Answer sessions – have been arranged in Pā Harakeke (by an assistant to the Auxiliary Board member) to provide a safe space for the youth to explore recognition of Bahá’u’lláh and the laws of His Dispensation. They ask all the questions that are culturally hard to ask and many of the youth who have been enrolled in the Faith have found these spaces very important. The young Bahá’ís benefit from help being given with visits to members of their whānau to win their support and understanding.
Individuals who have expressed a wish to be enrolled in the Bahá’í community tend to be older youth and have more courage and a deeper understanding to make a firm decision by themselves, despite the challenges that will come. After years of sustained effort and because of the impact of the institute process in action, the walls are breaking down with Christian whānau and the conversations about the Faith are becoming easier. The new Bahá’ís are not having as much resistance from their Christian whānau as others did in earlier years.
The Hastings Assembly has organised representatives to offer workshops once a week for youth during their youth nights. Themes are based on current conditions youth are facing or themes that the Assembly wants to explore such as teaching, enrolments, social media etc. They also study relevant messages that come through from the Universal House of Justice and National Spiritual Assembly.
Manurewa
Tutors are more consciously introducing, in the course of a study circle, conversations which make clear to participants the privileges and responsibilities associated with membership in the Bahá’í community. Tutors are learning how the study circle might become a space ‘where the possibility of joining the community can be discussed openly and inclusively among those who share a sense of collective identity’ such that ‘souls can more easily feel emboldened to take this step together.’ In the course of these conversations, the tutors are learning about cultural barriers to enrolment, and are also trying to identify concepts and specific passages from the Bahá'í Writings which might help to resolve misunderstandings and artificial barriers.
Some youth hesitate to formally join the Bahá'í community out of a sense of solidarity with their parents or concern about how their parents might react to their decision to embrace a different Faith. Three young women, each of whom recognises the station of Bahá’u’lláh, are currently grappling with the courage needed to enrol. They are also seeking ways to initiate meaningful conversations with their parents to foster mutual understanding. A tutor has been studying Book 6 with them and hosting fireside discussions, creating a space for reflection, consultation, and deepening in the Writings to support them on their journey. Similarly, an assistant to the Auxilary Board member has been gathering a group of male youth for conversations following weekly devotional gatherings. These youth have entered the institute process and are beginning to express curiosity about their own religion and the reasons behind certain practices in their church. The assistant is helping them explore these questions and drawing on ‘Some Answered Questions’ as a guide for their ongoing exploration.
Some friends with certain habits or addictions struggle to feel ready to be enrolled in the Faith because of the thought of having to let go of those habits or because of not wanting to ‘fail’ in upholding high moral standards. Tutors want to learn to allow these friends to join the Faith as they help them on their spiritual journey that entails effort to change certain habits. A tutor is drawing on the example of ‘Abdul-Bahá and how He would welcome people with open arms.
The expanding nucleus in Manurewa has also been discussing the receptivity and also vulnerability of those aged 14/15 who are at the threshold of being a youth and who have developed a sense of the twofold moral purpose through the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Programme. An Auxiliary Board member has been learning to study the Bahá’í junior youth texts with cohorts of 14-year olds and to teach the Faith directly in the course of the study to help the youth become conscious of their acceptance of the truth of Bahá’u’lláh’s Teachings. More needs to be learnt about helping these young youth communicate to their parents their sense of Bahá’í identity and their desire to join the Bahá’í community - in the process, teaching their parents about the Faith. Some of the parents of these youth are attracted to a pattern of religious community life that is familiar to them, which includes participating in collective worship on Sunday mornings. The nucleus is learning to avoid unreasonable expectations of what it means for families to become Bahá’ís and to be accommodating of families who are ready to connect with the Bahá’í Faith in this mode (Sunday morning devotions) as a starting point.
