‘Dynamic advances’: National Spiritual Assembly releases its annual report 

The national governing body of the Australian Baha’i Community, the National Spiritual Assembly, has released its Annual Report, highlighting the “dynamic advances” that have been unfolding across the country over the past Baha’i year while looking to the “priorities, questions and challenges” that lie ahead. 

The report, released every year in the lead up to the National Baha’i Convention, features an analysis of the Australian Baha’i Community’s learning, its growth and rise in capacity. Vignettes from selected individuals, communities and institutions help paint a picture of the efforts underway in relation to cluster development, pioneering, institutional growth, social transformation, spiritual educational endeavours and administrative affairs.

In the report, the National Spiritual Assembly notes that the “dynamic advances being made in the multiplication of centres of intense activity and groups of families” have enabled the country to achieve “new frontiers of growth”.  

The spiritual education process took further root in neighbourhoods across Australia, some 1500 groups of families nationwide have been working together to promote the vibrancy of their immediate surroundings, 29 pioneers – including eight children and junior youth – settled in eight countries to strengthen the Faith’s community-building endeavours,  efforts to respond to social challenges and contribute to the discourses of society have been unfolding more frequently, and 111 individuals formally enrolled as Baha’is.

Over the past year, interaction and collaboration with the Baha’i World Centre and its agencies also allowed for a constant flow of learning to reach those at the forefront of the community-building work, which the National Spiritual Assembly states “lifted our gaze, expanded our vision and connected our country ever closer to our brothers and sisters worldwide and, above all, to our beloved Supreme Body and Centre of the Covenant, the Universal House of Justice.” 

While the advances have been heartening, the report states that “[t]ests and challenges are inevitable in the path of learning.” 

With 55 clusters having reached the second milestone, 22 of which have also traversed the third milestone, the report states that “the rate of advancement needs to increase significantly in the coming year to reach the target, set at the outset of the Plan, for 62 clusters to have moved to the second milestone by the end of the first phase of the Plan, 45 of which were to have reached the third milestone.” 

A second milestone cluster is one in which a steady stream of friends is proceeding through the courses of the training institute and engaging in the corresponding activities such as children’s classes, junior youth groups and devotional gatherings. 

A third milestone cluster is characterised by an increase in the number of individuals going through the institute process and the number of community-building activities occurring. The process itself, then, becomes “strong enough to achieve and sustain a high degree of participation in all aspects of the capacity-building endeavour and manage the complexity entailed”.¹

The report highlighted how clusters around Australia are moving from one stage of development to the next, the insights being gleaned, and what is being learned from those clusters that are most advanced. 

According to the National Spiritual Assembly, the “vision is vast and the potential of this resourceful community immense”.  

The Nine Year Plan is one of the first in a series of ambitious plans for the worldwide Baha’i community, spanning the next quarter-century, which focuses on “a single aim: the release of the society-building power of the Faith in ever-greater measures.” Each Plan provides a framework for action, empowering the Baha’i community to strengthen its community-building efforts in towns, villages and cities across the globe in a bid to advance the material, spiritual and economic life of society. 

You can view the Annual Report here.

1. Universal House of Justice, Letter to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 29 December 2015[↩]