A new model of operation: “action, reflection, consultation and study”

A sample of chronological excerpts from the messages of the Universal House of Justice and a message of the International Teaching center:

Throughout the endeavour, periodic meetings of consultation in the area need to reflect on issues, consider adjustments, and maintain enthusiasm and unity of thought. (UHJ, Jan. 9, 2001)

Meetings of consultation held at the cluster level serve to raise awareness of possibilities and generate enthusiasm. Here, free from the demands of formal decision-making, participants reflect on experience gained, share insights, explore approaches and acquire a better understanding of how each can contribute to achieving the aim of the Plan. (UHJ, Jan. 17, 2003)

As the National Teaching Committee strengthens in this way its capacity to systematize the lessons being learned through the action and reflection of the friends in communities scattered across the country, it will be able to offer the knowledge gained to the institutions at all levels and lend further impetus to the movement of clusters nationwide. (UHJ, 19 Oct. 2005)

As they strive to apply through a process of action, reflection and consultation the insights thus gained, they see their capacity to serve the Cause rise to new levels. (UHJ, Ridvan 2008)

And let them rejoice at having learned through consistent, systematic action how

to establish a rhythm of growth that pays due attention to the essential elements of expansion, consolidation, reflection and planning. (UHJ, 20 October 2008)

Much will fall on the Local Assembly, not as an executor of projects but as the voice of moral authority, to make certain that, as the friends strive to apply the teachings of the Faith to improve conditions through a process of action, reflection and consultation, the integrity of their endeavours is not compromised. (UHJ, 28 Dec. 2010)

It will proceed naturally as the friends in every cluster persevere in applying the provisions of the Plan through a process of action, reflection, consultation and study, and learn as a result. (UHJ, Ridvan 2010)

Reflection meetings sometimes centred too much on planning or instruction rather than the opportunity to learn from experience and revise action accordingly. (ITC, April 2013)

In each, a people, increasingly aware of the Person of Bahá’u’lláh, is learning, through reflection on experience, consultation, and study, how to act on the truths enshrined in His Revelation… (UHJ, Rivan 2014)

Everyone has a share in this enterprise; the contribution of each serves to enrich the whole. The most dynamic clusters are those in which, irrespective of the resources the community possesses or the number of activities being undertaken, the friends appreciate that their task is to identify what is required for progress to occur—the nascent capacity that must be nurtured, the new skill that must be acquired, the initiators of a fledgling effort who must be accompanied, the space for reflection that must be cultivated, the collective endeavour that must be coordinated—and then find creative ways in which the necessary time and resources can be made available to achieve it. (UHJ, Ridvan 2014)