An Invitation to Join Our Growing World Community

The Columbia Baha’i Community warmly invites you to join a caring religion and warm and welcoming world community whose aim is nothing less than the unification of the entire human race.

Join us now

It will be helpful to think of the work of the Bahá’ís as the building of a
world civilization. The Universal House of Justice tells us that there are three participants in this work, each with a very important role. The first participant is the individual believer. It is the duty of this individual to remain firm in the Covenant, to strive daily to bring his or her life in line with Bahá’u’lláh ‘s Teachings, and to serve humanity, always conscious of the fact that life does not end with death and that one’s relation with God is eternal. After death, our souls become free and continue to progress towards God for all eternity. Our lives here are very much like the life of an infant in the womb of the mother. For some nine months the child develops faculties―eyes, ears, hands and so on―to be used later in this world. In the same way, we are to develop here the spiritual faculties that we need to progress in the other worlds of God. Of course, we do not achieve our purpose by just thinking about it. We have to work, serve our fellow human beings, and share the knowledge we gain with others.

The second participant is the community. Human beings were not created to exist alone. We live in communities and must work together to build the new civilization. The community closest to us is the local one which consists of the Bahá’ís of our village or town. It is in the local community where we learn to cooperate with one another, to grow together and become united. In addition to being members of the local community, we are also members of the national community and then the worldwide Bahá’í community which is constantly expanding and attracting people from every religious background, race, and nationality.

The institutions of the Faith, the Universal House of Justice tells us, represent the third participant in the building of the new civilization. This is a subject about which we will have to talk some more when we discuss the Covenant. For now, let me just mention that included in the commandments of Bahá’u’lláh are many related to the way society should be organized. In the past, the Manifestations of God have not said much about how their followers should organize themselves and people have had to discover how to do this by themselves. But, in the case of
the Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’u’lláh has brought His own Administrative Order, which means that He has told us what institutions we must create, how they should function, and how humanity should be governed.

We have already spoken about the supreme institution, which is the Universal House of Justice. In each country, Bahá’ís elect once a year the National Spiritual Assembly, and in each locality, the Local Spiritual Assembly. The Local Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Columbia has been in existence since 1970. There are no priests or clergy in the Bahá’í Faith, and it is the Local Spiritual Assembly that guides the affairs of the community and watches over the well-being of the individual believers. A
Local Spiritual Assembly consists of nine members elected in a prayerful
atmosphere by secret ballot by all the adult believers in the community. Spiritual Assemblies are extremely important to Bahá’ís. Through them we learn how human affairs are to be administered and how a new order can be established in society, an order which is to be known as the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.