1) The document discusses the intensive program of growth (IPG) approach to expansion and consolidation of the Baha'i faith through teaching efforts. 2) Key aspects of IPGs include an initial expansion phase to find new believers followed by a consolidation phase to integrate them through study circles. 3) Successful IPGs rely on direct and collective teaching, identifying receptive populations, and mobilizing teachers from among new believers. Divine assistance is seen as crucial to these efforts.

1. IPG Launch “ Sustained endeavor on the part of the individual, the community and the institutions to accelerate the institute process in a cluster….culminates in the launching of an intensive programme of growth.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

2. Study of Guidance Intensive Program of Growth (IPG) Expansion & Consolidation Direct Teaching Receptivity and Receptive Populations Divine Assistance

3. Ridvan 2009 “ A mere three years ago we set before the Baha’i world the challenge of exploiting the framework for action that had emerged with such clarity at the conclusion of the last global Plan. The response, as we had hoped, was immediate. With great vigour the friends everywhere began to pursue the goal of establishing intensive programmes of growth…But no one could have imagined then how profoundly the Lord of Hosts, in His inscrutable wisdom, intended to transform his community in so short a span of time.” Universal House of Justice, Ridvan Message 2009

4. Intensive Program of Growth (IPG) “… an intensive programme of growth is straightforward, simple and effective, but implies a level of exertion that tests the resolve of the friends.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

5. Expansion Phase “The expansion phase, often a period of two weeks, demands the highest level of intensity. Its objective is to widen the circle of those interested in the Faith, to find receptive souls and to teach them.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

6. Teaching Methods “Experience suggests that the more closely the teaching approaches and methods are aligned with the capacity acquired from the study of the institute courses the more rewarding the results.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

7. Teaching Plans “ Plans being devised for this phase (expansion) invariably involve the implementation of carefully designed teaching projects and campaigns of home visits and firesides, often through the mobilization of teaching teams. The pattern of expansion that unfolds, however, varies from cluster to cluster.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

8. Consolidation Phase “One of the primary objectives of this next phase (consolidation) is to bring a percentage of the new believers into the institute process so that an adequate pool of human resources will be available in future cycles to sustain growth.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

9. Learning about Growth “ Learning about growth is a dynamic process. The more we do, the more we learn. As part of the ongoing learning, we wish to share with you some of our current thinking on how to advance the process of entry by troops, with special reference to the hundreds of less developed clusters that need to reach a level of significant, sustained growth by the end of the Five Year Plan.” International Teaching Centre, 30 Sep 2007

10. Direct Collective Teaching “ Those (clusters) that have attained a healthy, sustainable growth pattern are characterized by a focus on teaching, in particular direct teaching, and not just on extending invitations to core activities. Where intensive programs of growth have stalled at a plateau of low numbers of enrollments, the dimension missing from the framework for action is direct, collective teaching.” International Teaching Centre, 30 Sep 2007

11. Mobilization of Teachers “The friends are often not mobilized once they have completed institute courses because there are no demands placed upon them as would be the case if there were an influx of new believers. When there is growth, the believers arise to serve and mobilization is realized.” International Teaching Centre, 30 Sep 2007

12. Receptivity “ It should be noted, however, that as learning advances and experience is gained, the ability not only to teach responsive souls, but also to identify segments of the general population with heightened receptivity, develops, and the totality of new believers increases from cycle to cycle.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

13. Receptive Populations “ Most gratifying are the endeavors being made to reach receptive populations with the teachings of the Faith. As unrelenting social and political forces continue to uproot people from their homelands and sweep them across continents, an uncompromising appreciation for a diversity of backgrounds and for the strength it confers on the whole will prove crucial to the expansion and consolidation of the community.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

14. Suffering and Receptivity “ Millions of refugees fleeing from persecution have swept like tidal waves back and forth across the European, African and Asiatic continents, particularly. Amid the suffering such turmoil has caused, one perceives the progressive integration of the world’s races and cultures as the citizenry of a single global homeland.” One Common Faith, Commissioned by the Universal House of Justice, paragraph 14

15. Receptive Souls “ In short, O ye believers of God! Exalt your effort and magnify your aims. His Holiness Christ says: Blessed are the poor, for theirs shall be the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words: Blessed are the nameless and traceless poor, for they are the leaders of mankind. Likewise it is said in the Qur’an: “And We desire to show favor to those who were brought low in the land, and to make them spiritual leaders among men, and to make of them Our heirs.” Or, we wish to grant a favor to the impotent souls and suffer them to become the inheritors of the Messengers and Prophets.” ‘ Abdu’l-Baha, Tablets of the Divine Plan page 34

16. Sustaining Growth “ Sustaining growth in cluster after cluster will depend on the qualities that distinguish your service to the peoples of the world. So free must be your thoughts and actions of any trace of prejudice – racial, religious, economic, national, tribal, class, or cultural – that even the stranger sees in you loving friends. Only if you perceive honour and nobility in every human being – this independent of wealth or poverty – will you be able to champion the cause of justice.” Universal House of Justice, Ridvan 2008

17. Divine Assistance “ Above all, the friends need to remain ever conscious of the magnitude of the spiritual forces that are at their disposition. They are members of a community “whose world-embracing, continually consolidating activities constitute the one integrating process in a world whose institutions, secular as well as religious, are for the most part dissolving. The “building process,” to which they are consecrated, is “the one hope of a stricken society.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

18. Illumined Souls “ And remind them that they are the illumined souls envisioned by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in His prayer: “Heroes are they, O my Lord, lead them to the field of battle. Guides are they, make them to speak out with arguments and proofs. Ministering servants are they, cause them to pass round the cup that brimmeth with the wine of certitude. O my God, make them to be songsters that carol in the fair gardens, make them lions that couch in the thickets, whales that plunge in the vasty deep.” Universal House of Justice, 27 Dec 2005

19. Spiritual Descendants of the Dawn-Breakers "Heed not your weakness and frailty; fix your gaze upon the invincible power of the Lord, your God,... Arise in His name, put your trust wholly in Him, and be assured of ultimate victory." The Báb, quoted in The Dawn-breakers, p.94