Re: (Ruhi Study Circle Experience) was Baha'is going Door-to-Door

Doug wrote:

Is there some expectation that once someone finishes all seven books then automatically there will be entry by troops? And why did individual teaching seem to decline during this process? 

Dear Doug,

You are asking me to speculate on things about the American Baha'i community which I, of course, am not able to do. I assume that your National Spiritual Assembly made the decision to use only Ruhi, so you need to go through the proper administrative channels if you feel you have some information that they do not have, so that their decision making is fully informed.

Have you been studying the guidance of the Universal House of Justice and the International Teaching Centre about the why's and wherefore's of Ruhi? Here's a passage from the ITC dated November 2004 which seems to address some of your questions:

Training a Critical Mass -- Striving for "a sizable group of devoted and capable believers who understand the prerequisites for sustainable growth"

Since receiving the guidance in the letter of 17 January 2003 from the House of Justice, every country has "aimed at helping an ever-increasing number of friends to move through the main sequence of courses." More recently, based on the experience in a number of strong clusters, we have encouraged the believers and institutions in such clusters to strive to take a critical mass of believers through the sequence of courses and to do so in an accelerated manner. For where this had happened, it was possible to observe a new dynamic and an enhanced readiness for intensive growth. Specifically, we have suggested that in many clusters at least 40 to 50 people need to be taken through the sequence. Raising up this sizable group of trained human resources has contributed directly to other prerequisites for intensive growth, such as promoting the systematic multiplication of study circles and enhancing the capacity of Local Spiritual Assemblies. At the same time, however, certain difficulties have occasionally arisen from a preoccupation with the goal of achieving a critical mass.

In some areas, the eagerness of the believers and institutions to achieve certain targets in the institute process has led them to eliminate portions of the courses, particularly the practice components, which are an essential aspect of training. If the friends are never able to apply the skills they are learning, they will not become effective in carrying out the tasks of expansion and consolidation. It has become clear that to move quickly through the training does not mean reducing the number of hours spent on a course; it means completing the same course and its practices in their entirety, but in a shorter period of time -- perhaps days instead of weeks or weeks instead of months. A balanced approach is needed that avoids the potential pitfalls of rapid training that fails to cultivate skills and multiply activities, or endless training to achieve capacities that would be developed more fully through practical experience.

We have noted that at times the focus on taking 50 or so believers through the sequence of courses has resulted in rigid or overly simplistic perspectives. In some clusters that contained all the needed resources and core activities for intensive growth, initiating a growth program was delayed because there were, for example, only 46 believers who had completed the full sequence. Meanwhile, in clusters where the target of 50 was achieved, there was sometimes the expectation that this would automatically result in growth. In such instances it is important to remember that having 40 to 50 believers complete the sequence is not a magic formula. It is an indicator that has to be viewed in the context of other propitious conditions as well as the success at outreach and teaching already achieved in the cluster.

In clusters with relatively small Bahá'í populations, efforts to achieve a critical mass will proceed somewhat differently. Initially, intensive training may result in only 15 or 20 believers completing the sequence of courses. This effort would need to be augmented by vigorous teaching so that the size of the community gradually increases and along with it, the number of trained human resources. While this may mean that it takes longer for a cluster with fewer Bahá'ís to meet the prerequisites for an intensive program of growth, the friends will already possess a substantial body of experience in effective teaching by the time their cluster reaches an advanced stage of development.

Intensive institute campaigns will continue to be a vital strategy in the months ahead for accelerating the movement of large numbers of clusters to the point of initiating intensive programs of growth...."

(ITC, 2004 Nov 28, Intensive Programs of Growth)

If you type in "Ruhi" or "Training Institute" in Ocean, and look to see what the International Teaching Centre has said about it, they quote much of what the Universal House of Justice has said on the subject.

Kind regards,

Suzanne 

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