Six Year Plan (1986-1992)

"Six Year Plan" redirects here. For other uses, see Six Year Plan (disambiguation).

Six Year Plan (1986-1992)
Epoch	Fourth Epoch
Coordinator	Universal House of Justice
Protagonists	All National Spiritual Assemblies

Divine Plan

Shoghi Effendi

First Epoch (1937-1963)

1st Seven Year Plan (1937-1944) Indian Six Year Plan (1938-1944) British Six Year Plan (1944-1950) 2nd Seven Year Plan (1946-1953) Indian 4½ Year Plan (1946-1950) Persian 45 Month Plan (1946-1950) Persian Women's Four Year Plan (1946-1950) Australian Six Year Plan (1947-1953) Canadian Five Year Plan (1948-1953) Egyptian Five Year Plan (1948-1953) German Five Year Plan (1948-1953) African Campaign (1950-1953) Iraqi Three Year Plan (1950-1953) British Two Year Plan (1951-1953) Indian Nineteen Month Plan (1951-1953) South American Two Year Plan (1951-1953) Central American One Year Plan (1952-1953) Ten Year Crusade (1953-1963) Northeast Asian Six Year Plan (1957-1963)

Universal House of Justice

Second Epoch (1964-2021)

Nine Year Plan (1964-1973) Five Year Plan (1974-1979) Seven Year Plan (1979-1986) Six Year Plan (1986-1992) Three Year Plan (1993-1996) Four Year Plan (1996-2000) Twelve Month Plan (2000-2001) Five Year Plan (2001-2006) Five Year Plan (2006-2011) Five Year Plan (2011-2016) Five Year Plan (2016-2021)

Third Epoch (2021-)

Twelve Month Plan (2021-2022) Nine Year Plan (2022-2031)

The Six Year Plan from 1986 to 1992 was one of a series of Plans carried out under the guidance of the Universal House of Justice.

The Plan was focused on the expansion and consolidation of the international Bahá’í community. It was notably the first international teaching plan to begin with a Conference of the Continental Boards of Counsellors held in the Holy Land and the first in which specific goals for national communities were formulated by National Spiritual Assemblies, as opposed to being presented to them by the World Centre.

History

Prelude to the Plan

On November 25, 1984, the Universal House of Justice sent a message to all National Spiritual Assemblies in which it invited them to participate in the Formulation of the Six Year Plan inviting each Assembly to submit comments on the following topics relevant to the communities under their jurisdiction by March 31, 1985.:

• Current status and specific needs of the Bahá’í community. What distinctive strengths and weaknesses do you see in your community? Are there any unusual features of the condition of the Faith in your community which must be taken into account in the formulation of the next Plan?

• Condition of the nation. Do the social, political and economic trends indicate any unusual opportunities or difficulties for the development of the Bahá’í community in the immediate years ahead?

In October 1985 the Universal House of Justice announced that for the first time it was holding a Conference for the Continental Boards of Counselors in the Holy Land from 27 December 1985 to 2 January 1986 to allow for deliberation on the tasks and opportunities lying before the community. This came to be the standard practice of the Bahá’í community with all future Plans being launched with a Counselors Conference. In its message to the Counselors Conference the House of Justice identified consideration of the main features of the new Six Year Plan as one of the major purposes of the Conference.

The Universal House of Justice released a Message for the Bahá’ís of the World at the close of the Counselors Conference in which it noted the Six Year Plan was to begin on April 21, 1986, and end on April 20, 1992, with a second Bahá’í World Congress to be held in New York City during Ridvan 1992. The message also listed the following as features of the Six Year Plan:

• A vast expansion of the numerical and financial resources of the Cause.
• Enlargement of its status in the world.
• A worldwide increase in the production, distribution and use of Bahá’í literature.
• A firmer and worldwide demonstration of the Bahá’í way of life requiring special consideration of the Bahá’í education of children and youth, the strengthening of Bahá’í family life and attention to universal participation and the spiritual enrichment of individual life.
• Further acceleration in the process of the maturation of local and national Bahá’í communities and a dynamic consolidation of the unity of the two arms of the Administrative Order.
• An extension of the involvement of the Bahá’í world community in the needs of the world around it.
• The pursuit of social and economic development in well-established Bahá’í communities.

In the message the Universal House of Justice also announced the Plan would be executed with a new process with national goals to be formulated by National Spiritual Assemblies in consultation with the Boards of Counselors instead of goals being determined by the World Centre and it identified this as a maturation of Bahá’í institutions and a new stage in the unfoldment of the Administrative Order and declared that the Bahá’í Faith had entered the fourth epoch of the Formative Age.

On 25 February 1986 the Universal House of Justice released a message to all National Spiritual Assemblies in which it re-emphasized that a characteristic of the Plan was that conceiving national goals was in and of itself a task of the Plan suggesting that the Assemblies meet with a representative of a Continental Board of Counselors as soon as possible so that plans could be submitted to the World Centre for consideration by the Universal House of Justice and International Teaching Centre so that they could be modified or approved. The message also included the following major international objectives of the Faith noting that these should be consulted on but that specific goals had not yet been approved at the World Center::

• Pioneering
• Resident teaching projects
• traveling teaching
• Assistance for development projects
• Acquisition of properties and vehicles

The message also provided seven major national level objectives with suggestions of potential specific national goals which could be pursued which were intended to serve as a basis for National Assemblies consultations without confining them:

• Carrying the healing Message of Bahá’u’lláh to the generality of mankind.
• Greater involvement of the Faith in the life of human society.
• A worldwide increase in the translation, production, distribution and use of Bahá’í literature.
• Further acceleration in the process of the maturation of local and national Bahá’í communities.
• Greater attention to universal participation and the spiritual enrichment of individual believers.
• A wider extension of Bahá’í education to children and youth, and the strengthening of Bahá’í family life.
• The pursuit of projects of social and economic development in well-established Bahá’í communities.