> I am of the opinion that such campaigns should be dependent on local
> Baha'i sup****t.
Dear John,
I agree. The reason I wouldn't be so worried about 'what the neighbors
might say' is that I live in a predominantly African-American
neighborhood where talking about religion is just a way of life.
Besides, the alumni president of the largest historically black
university in the state is also a Baha'i and he gives us a lot of
credibility.
Hopefully the present plan should ensure that such
> teaching forays do not occur unless the people concerned have
> carefully planned and resourced both the actual teaching and detailed
> follow-up procedures.
That's exactly what the cluster meetings are designed to do.
>
>
> If they really haven't taken any notice of the material and contact
> they received as part of the process of declaring it is hard to
> imagine them inviting someone to home visit them.
We don't wait for them to take the initiative. We call them and ask
for a convenient time where we might meet with them. Aside from that,
I can tell you from my experience here in Mississippi that a lot of
devoted Bahai's simply don't read. It is not a measure of their
commitment. People like you and I who spend most of our lives on the
internet and read everything in sight, I really exceptional. '
The point is that
> Ruhi book 2 totally ducks the issues of in what cir***stances and and
> how one seeks such invitations.
That varies from place to place. Most of us here in the United States
just get on the phone. With people in my neighborhood it's even
easier. On a nice day people are sitting in their yards. I come
walking by with my dog and just ask them when it would be a good time
for us to get together.
> >
> > I've never heard of home visits being unannounced unless we are
> > talking about areas where people might not have phones, etc.
>
> Exactly, you couldn't do it in Australia and in general you couldn't
> visit mere acquaintances (as new declarants from mass teaching are
> likely to be at best) even with announcement unless invited. But Ruhi
> 2 simply ignores this side of the matter.
Ruhi is a world wide curriculum, John, and what's appropriate varies
from place to place. Keep in mind that you take these courses in study
circles, you don't just fill out the work book and figure out for
yourself how to implement it. Here in the States the tutors are
supposed to accompany participants on their first home visit. The
tutors set up the appointments for these home visits ahead of time.
No one is taken by surprise.
It may be that it was
> written for societies where it is much more acceptable to just pop in
> unannounced (China for example was like that) or it may be that they
> deliberately avoided the issue as they recognised it would be
> different in different cultures. If you happen to have one of those
> tutors who insist on keeping the study circle to the narrow context of
> the book (as seems to be recommended in the introductions) the
> participants are left with no skills I can see for conducting home
> visits.
What makes you think the "narrow context of the book" recommends going
to people's houses unannounced? Have you done Book 7 that you know
what tutors are trained to do? It seems to me that you are making an
awful lot of assumptions here.
> In Australia, recently, there has been experiments with offering the
> home visits as part of initial contact . That may be a solution.
I think that is pretty standard when we do door to door teaching.
warmest, Susan
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