Every orchestra begins with someone playing the first note.
StudyServiceReflectionAccompanimentCommunity
The music grows when more of us learn to play.
Explore the Orchestra
Hover or select a part of the community — the scene will show you where it lives.
What is the Institute Process?
The Bahá’í training institute is concerned with developing the capacity of increasing numbers of people to contribute to the spiritual and material wellbeing of their communities.
Participants study, act, reflect on experience and consult together. As capacities develop, they undertake forms of service such as children’s classes, junior youth groups, devotional gatherings and study circles.
“Pre-eminent among the structures and agencies created by the Bahá’í world to offer education is, of course, the training institute… Building capacity for service within communities by enabling ever-increasing numbers of individuals to benefit from the institute process will continue to be a central feature of the Plans.”— The Universal House of Justice, 30 December 2021 (“Educational endeavours and the training institute”)
As more people arise to serve and accompany one another, these activities can multiply and become increasingly interconnected, contributing to a richer pattern of community life. Over time, growing capacity can also give rise to social action and engagement with the life of wider society — for the process is “an approach founded on faith in the ability of a population to become the protagonists of their own development.”
The process is not a program that is simply delivered to a community. It is a process of learning in which individuals, institutions and communities progressively increase their capacity to contribute to the transformation of society. As the Universal House of Justice has written, “the institute is a potent means for the society-building power of the Faith to find release.”
Sources & further reading
The Universal House of Justice, letter to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors, 30 December 2021. Sections quoted: the opening paragraphs; “The movement of clusters”; “Learning from the most advanced clusters”; “Contributing to social transformation”; “Educational endeavours and the training institute”; “Raising capacity for administration at all levels”; “A historic mission”. Bahá’í Reference Library ↗
Further letters describing the institute process and the framework for action — including the Riḍván messages to the Bahá’ís of the world and the message to the Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors of 27 December 2005 — are available in the Bahá’í Reference Library.
How does a community learn to transform itself?
Perhaps it sounds something like this.
The Institute Process — An Individual’s Interpretation
Sound is recommended — the music itself tells the story. Everything also works without it.