This talk will describe the progressive evolution of the Bahá’í community into an emerging instrument of spiritual and social change on a global scale as we approach 100 years from the birth of its Administrative Order.

It will review the new vocabulary that has emerged, the new approaches to coordinated community learning in action, and share illustrative real life stories. It will outline how the various elements (core activities, clusters, cycles, milestones, institutions, communities of interest, social action, etc) coalesce into a coherent approach applicable at all stages of our individual and community capacity.

It will finally estimate where we are at collectively, what the quantitative and spiritual impact has been, where the frontiers of learning are, how all our myriad efforts aggregate into remarkable global impact. In this context it will also address how we fit across the entire spectrum of experience, from those of us discovering how to affect entire societies, to those of us discovering how to simply have a meaningful conversation with a neighbor.

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Ismael Velasco has been a Bahá’í for 30 years, involved in community building processes inside and outside the Bahá’í community in over 20 countries, gaining the opportunity to see many of these processes across a wide diversity of contexts. Academically, he has published in the fields of Bahá’í scholarship and social action, and professionally focused in community development around the world.