Here are some new lyrics for a familiar song--Pete Seeger's " If I Had a Hammer"
If I had a letter
I'd read it in the morning
I'd read it in the evening
All over this land
I'd read about coherence
I'd read about community-building
I'd read about the love between
my brothers and my sister
All over this land....
If I had a method
I'd practice in the morning
I'd practice in the evening
All over this land
I'd build a vision
I'd avoid dichotomous thinking
I'd focus on process rather than events
All over this land....
If I had a plan
I'd build a new civilization
I'd nurture human potential
In my own locality
My mode of learning
Would be humble and open
I'd invite neighbors and friends
To the core activities
All over this land...
Well, I have a letter
And I have a method
And I have a Five Year Plan
For how to change the world
It's a letter from the House of Justice
It's a method called active learning
It's a Plan involving individuals
communities
institutions
All over this land!!!!!
19 April 2011
02 April 2011
Feast Communities
My previous post about Monkey Brains discussed the value in decentralizing Baha'i communities as they get too big, to allow for more growth. In the comments I got an earful from people bemoaning the loss of a larger community, "If you split up in groups before you have a cohesive fire started somewhere then those groups will fizzle out... Success isn't in division."
At the time of writing that, my city of Portland had 7 Feast areas, and had been alternating every other Feast from centralized to decentralized. Centralized attendance was in the 50-80 range, and decentralized attendance ranged from 4-20 people, depending on the area. The city has 150-170 active overall. The Baha'i center is an hour from certain parts of the city. After breaking up into 7 areas, overall attendance actually went up noticeably, especially in the outlying areas. So did Fund contributions, which usually follow attendance. A side effect of breaking up was that people became more intimate with Baha'is living close-by, and it gave a further boost to non-Feast related activities. It also became more friendly to new Baha'is, because they didn't feel lost in a crowd. In this case decentralizing was a catalyst for growth, in a city that hadn't seen noticeable growth for well over 10 years prior.
There is a challenge in decentralizing. If the areas are too small, as my friend commented, then the fire goes out. Out of the 7 areas two of them sometimes reached attendance of three people, depending on families being out of town. In some areas, if the Feast got up to 20 people, then it was difficult to host in most homes.
The Assembly just made a somewhat dramatic decision. From now on Portland will have three Feast areas, with no centralized Feasts. This effectively shapes the city into three distinct Baha'i communities, sharing a single LSA and a single cluster boundary, with a few central holy days. The interesting part is that while decentralizing, the areas got bigger, at least for awhile.
There are some serious advantages to this scenario. First of all, it avoids the large group problem of having so many people that personal connections get lost. Second, it creates communities of about 50 active believers, which happens to be the number much toted several years back as the magic number for growth (although since then the International Teaching Centre has discouraged relying on a formula for growth). Third, it also avoids the small group problem of not having enough people to keep the fire going with resources for a variety of activities.
There are also some serious disadvantages to this scenario. First of all, attendance will be in the 25-30 range initially, and will only grow, so most homes won't work for hosting. That puts us back into rented facilities, despite owning a Baha'i center (and spending a lot of $$$ for upkeep). Second, it adds to the travel problem that smaller neighborhoods fixed, so a trip from one extreme to the other still takes about 45 minutes. Third, in the downtown area where people mostly don't own cars, rides will have to be coordinated when the event is not close by.
The Assembly also will appoint two people from each area to coordinate Feast venues and hosts.
I'm very interested in feedback. What have other communities experimented with? What have you learned? What advice do you have?
At the time of writing that, my city of Portland had 7 Feast areas, and had been alternating every other Feast from centralized to decentralized. Centralized attendance was in the 50-80 range, and decentralized attendance ranged from 4-20 people, depending on the area. The city has 150-170 active overall. The Baha'i center is an hour from certain parts of the city. After breaking up into 7 areas, overall attendance actually went up noticeably, especially in the outlying areas. So did Fund contributions, which usually follow attendance. A side effect of breaking up was that people became more intimate with Baha'is living close-by, and it gave a further boost to non-Feast related activities. It also became more friendly to new Baha'is, because they didn't feel lost in a crowd. In this case decentralizing was a catalyst for growth, in a city that hadn't seen noticeable growth for well over 10 years prior.
There is a challenge in decentralizing. If the areas are too small, as my friend commented, then the fire goes out. Out of the 7 areas two of them sometimes reached attendance of three people, depending on families being out of town. In some areas, if the Feast got up to 20 people, then it was difficult to host in most homes.
The Assembly just made a somewhat dramatic decision. From now on Portland will have three Feast areas, with no centralized Feasts. This effectively shapes the city into three distinct Baha'i communities, sharing a single LSA and a single cluster boundary, with a few central holy days. The interesting part is that while decentralizing, the areas got bigger, at least for awhile.
There are some serious advantages to this scenario. First of all, it avoids the large group problem of having so many people that personal connections get lost. Second, it creates communities of about 50 active believers, which happens to be the number much toted several years back as the magic number for growth (although since then the International Teaching Centre has discouraged relying on a formula for growth). Third, it also avoids the small group problem of not having enough people to keep the fire going with resources for a variety of activities.
There are also some serious disadvantages to this scenario. First of all, attendance will be in the 25-30 range initially, and will only grow, so most homes won't work for hosting. That puts us back into rented facilities, despite owning a Baha'i center (and spending a lot of $$$ for upkeep). Second, it adds to the travel problem that smaller neighborhoods fixed, so a trip from one extreme to the other still takes about 45 minutes. Third, in the downtown area where people mostly don't own cars, rides will have to be coordinated when the event is not close by.
The Assembly also will appoint two people from each area to coordinate Feast venues and hosts.
I'm very interested in feedback. What have other communities experimented with? What have you learned? What advice do you have?
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