Wherever an intensive programme of growth is established,
let the friends spare no effort to increase the level of participation. Let
them strain every nerve to ensure that the system which they have so laboriously
erected does not close in on itself but progressively expands to embrace more
and more people. Let them not lose sight of the remarkable receptivity they
found—nay, the sense of eager expectation that awaited them—as they gained
confidence in their ability to interact with people of all walks of life and
converse with them about the Person of Bahá’u’lláh and His Revelation. Let them
hold fast to the conviction that a direct presentation of the Faith, when carried
out at a sufficient level of depth and reinforced by a sound approach to
consolidation, can bring enduring results. And let them not forget the lessons
of the past which left no doubt that a relatively small band of active
supporters of the Cause, no matter how resourceful, no matter how consecrated,
cannot attend to the needs of communities comprising hundreds, much less
thousands, of men, women and children. The implications are clear enough. If,
in a cluster, those shouldering responsibility for expansion and consolidation
number in the tens, with a few hundred participating in the activities of community
life, both figures should rise significantly so that by the end of the Plan,
one or two hundred are facilitating the participation of one or two thousand.
- The
Universal House of Justice (From a message dated 28 December 2010 addressed to
the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors)
