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Baha'i
Without ministers or priests or a clerical cast, Baha'is meet regularly to vote for their representatives on a local and national level and to consult on issues that concern them.
This weekend Baha'is across the U.S. and other countries will be attending what are called Unit Conventions.. these are "grass root" community gatherings in defined areas across the country.
Dependiing on the size of the country there will be several Unit Conventions meeting to consult about important issues concerning the Faith in their local areas and most importantly to elect a delegate(s) to represent the area at the next National Convention to be held next Ridvan around late April 2013, these delegates vote on who will serve on the National Spiritual Assembly and hear reports about the status of the Faith on the national level...
In the U.S. the following message was sent to the Baha'is by the current National Spiritual Assembly:
it was the Master, in His function as the “Centre and Pivot” of that Covenant, Who conceived the process you will participate in today—calling, in His Will and Testament, for the establishment of “secondary Houses of Justice,” or National Spiritual Assemblies, and specifying, in another of His Tablets, that these National Spiritual Assemblies be elected through a two-stage process.
Thus evolved the task that will be your principal focus this weekend, which is, of course, to elect from your numbers a delegate (or delegates) to participate in next May’s Bahá'í National Convention, where she or he will join other delegates from every corner of the country in electing the National Spiritual Assembly and in consulting extensively on the situation of the American Bahá'í community in light of the current Five Year Plan. Seen from this perspective, it becomes quite clear that the responsibilities you will carry out today are sacred in nature—integral to a Bahá'í electoral process devised by the Faith’s Central Figures themselves.
Several hundred of these conventions will be meeting across the U.S.
__________________
This weekend Baha'is across the U.S. and other countries will be attending what are called Unit Conventions.. these are "grass root" community gatherings in defined areas across the country.
Dependiing on the size of the country there will be several Unit Conventions meeting to consult about important issues concerning the Faith in their local areas and most importantly to elect a delegate(s) to represent the area at the next National Convention to be held next Ridvan around late April 2013, these delegates vote on who will serve on the National Spiritual Assembly and hear reports about the status of the Faith on the national level...
In the U.S. the following message was sent to the Baha'is by the current National Spiritual Assembly:
it was the Master, in His function as the “Centre and Pivot” of that Covenant, Who conceived the process you will participate in today—calling, in His Will and Testament, for the establishment of “secondary Houses of Justice,” or National Spiritual Assemblies, and specifying, in another of His Tablets, that these National Spiritual Assemblies be elected through a two-stage process.
Thus evolved the task that will be your principal focus this weekend, which is, of course, to elect from your numbers a delegate (or delegates) to participate in next May’s Bahá'í National Convention, where she or he will join other delegates from every corner of the country in electing the National Spiritual Assembly and in consulting extensively on the situation of the American Bahá'í community in light of the current Five Year Plan. Seen from this perspective, it becomes quite clear that the responsibilities you will carry out today are sacred in nature—integral to a Bahá'í electoral process devised by the Faith’s Central Figures themselves.
Several hundred of these conventions will be meeting across the U.S.
__________________