Regional Bahá’í School Schedule  

Friday 10/25
5:00 p.m. Registration begins
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00 p.m. Opening Devotions on Love
7:30 p.m. Meet your family
8:00 p.m. Group study: Let your heart burn with loving kindness . . .
9:00 p.m. Close formal evening program

Saturday 10/26
7:30 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 a.m. Morning Devotions on Oneness
9:00 a.m. Opening remarks – Plenary
9:15 a.m Dismiss groups to the first session
9:15 a.m. Session 1: We are all connected (Part 1)
10:45 a.m. Break
11:15 a.m. Session 2: We are all connected (Part 2)
12:30 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. Session 3: Building Oneness
3:00 p.m. Recreational and choice activities
6:00 p.m. Dinner
7:00  p.m. Evening activities: Ice cream bar, story time, campfire and dancing!

Sunday 10/27
7:30 a.m. Breakfast
8:30 a.m. Morning Devotions on Justice
9:00 a.m. Session 4: Consultation as an indispensable tool for building oneness
10:30 a.m. Break
11:00 a.m.  Session 5: Consultation (Part 2)
12:00 p.m. Reflection on our learning – Plenary
1:00  p.m. Lunch 

Regional Bahá’í School     

SAVE THE DATE             Oct 25,26,27

The South Central Regional Council is delighted to announce the first ever Regional Bahá’í School to be held October 25-27 at the Greene Family Camp in Bruceville, Texas. It has been five years since the last Texas Bahá’í School and perhaps even longer for other States in our Region. So we have themed this inaugural Regional School, “Building Oneness: A Family Reunion”. This space is open to Bahá’ís and their friends who desire to build vibrant communities wherever they reside. We hope that through study, fellowship and recreational activities we get to know each other better, build stronger bonds of love and reflect on our next steps as we work to bring Bahá’u’lláh’s vision for a spiritually and materially prosperous world into reality.

There will be dedicated study sessions for children 5-11, junior youth, youth, young adults and families. For children under the age of 5, we will have a space for parents to be able to care for their children and participate as much as possible in the program.

We hope that monetary restrictions won’t keep anyone away. Please contact your Local Spiritual Assembly or the Regional Council if you need financial assistance.

Link for registration: SCRegional Baha’i School registration

If you feel the cost is to high please let us know. We don’t want financial barriers to keep friends away.   Scholarship/financial aid

The Nine Year Plan

Releasing the Society-Building Power of the Faith in the South Central Region

 The provisions of the Universal House of Justice for the Nine Year Plan include broadly:

• Movement of clusters along a continuum of development
• Community-building efforts
• Projects and activities for social action
• Contributing to the discourses of society
• Spiritual and social transformation through educational endeavors
• Raising administrative capacities at all levels
• Fulfilling international and home-front pioneering goals

Two-Fold Moral Purpose
“The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh is concerned with the transformation of both humanity’s inner life and social environment. … A clear sign that the society-building power of the Cause is being released in a cluster is that efforts are being made by a growing band of its inhabitants, inspired by the teachings of the Faith, to help improve the spiritual character and social conditions of the wider community to which they belong. The contribution made by Bahá’ís is distinguished by its focus on building capacity for service; it is an approach founded on faith in the ability of a population to become the protagonists of their own development.“ (30 December 2021 letter, Universal House of Justice)
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A Regular Devotional Meeting in Every Household

In a recent feast letter, the National Spiritual Assembly has set a challenging goal for the American Bahá’í community: “we ask that every Bahá’í household in the nation undertake the hosting of a regular devotional meeting. The members of the National Spiritual Assembly have pledged to do their part, and we lovingly invite you to join us in achieving this vision.”
Currently 25% of the households in the South Central region are hosting regular devotional meetings. Statistics from the Regional Bahá’í Council show that there are approximately 4,000 Bahá’í households in the region, and that there are currently just over 1,000 regular devotional meetings. We can increase this participation toward 100% through the personal initiatives of Bahá’í families throughout our area.
Significance and Benefits of Devotional Meetings
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Global Conferences News And Pictures From Around Our South Central Region, Cont.

The Universal House of Justice at Ridvan of 2022 began a series of global plans that will last a full 25 years, carrying the Cause into the third century of the Baha Era and conclude at Ridvan 2046.
Action was taken immediately to initiate global conferences with over 33 convened here in the South Central Region where the excitement was unprecedented. The conferences were imbued with prayers, fellowship, nourishment, study, consultation on how we can effectively meet the needs of the whole community, and a review of the Faith’s historical past in the film Glimpses of a Hundred Years of Endeavor.
From these conferences also emerged a new unity of vision around the Nine Year Plan. They focused on protagonism and the development of nuclei at the grassroots. They are helping teams of friends read their reality and make plans together. Many people gained a new insight  for how we can engage the whole community and our neighborhoods. What is key, we are realizing, is the need for systematic follow up on all the new plans as we move forward.
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Wave 2 Seminar in Harris Cluster Grouping/Louisiana Houston Baha’i Center, October 6 to 9, 2022

• How do we increase the flow of new human resources into the Institute— cycle after cycle?
  
• How do we support participants to become protagonists in the context of an expanding nucleus?

These questions are the objects of learning being contemplated at each wave of the institute seminars. On October 6-9, 2022 weekend at the Houston Baha’i Center, about 40 tutors from the Harris Cluster Grouping and Louisiana gathered for the second wave of seminars in an intensive 3-day training.

The goals of the seminar were to increase the quality of the institute and disseminate learning. This was accomplished by studying the contents of the new version of Reflections on the Life of the Spirit, especially the “A Few Thoughts for the Tutor” introduction, and through rich practical experience of applying the themes in the three parts of Book One during home visits in the greater Houston community.
“A culture of regular home visits needs to be strengthened to support the development of true friendship.”

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Wave 1: August Training Institute Seminar

We gathered – some 45 from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana – for a heart and spirit-filling institute seminar in an intensive five day format. It was August 2022 at the dawning of a new series of Plans mapping our path for the next twenty-five years. Building on the significant advance in the process of entry by troops pursued by the Baha’i world since 1996, the new Plans focus on expressing the society-building power inherent in the Cause in an ever-greater measure. We learned to welcome all comers into an understanding of Baha’u’llah’s vision for community building, social action and participation in the discourses of society.

The seminar kicked off a collective endeavor of tutors throughout the Region to generate experience and learning around the following two questions:

1. How do we increase the flow of new human resources into the institute cycle after cycle?
2. How do we support participants to become protagonists in the context of an expanding nucleus?

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