namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Kripamoya Prabhu explains history and development of book distribution follow-up strategies in the UK. This online-book contains the following articles:

• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: The Mail Order Miracle
• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Meet the Monks!
• Book Distribution Follow Up Strategies: Market Place Festivals

The articles have been posted originally on his blog, The Vaishnava Voice. If and when Kripamoya Prabhu writes more on this subject, I'll include it here.

You can download the whole series as a pdf-file, too.

Such lack of integration between preaching styles inevitably leads to organisational snobbishness, the consequent erosion of team spirit, and can lead to the complete disintegration of a temple or centre. At the very least, it means that the right hand of the movement doesn't know what the left hand is doing—and any interested people lose their way in the confusion.

So the idea was quite simply to bring the different types of preaching together into a seamless programme that more or less resembled Srila Prabhupada's idea of 1973. We wanted to keep the cost down, so we made sure that we paid for everything we did with the proceeds of book distribution. We also wanted the programme to be reproducible for any sankirtan team.

Tribhuvanatha Das, who preached to me in a muddy field in the rain—he was completely dedicated to the spirit of adventure in taking Srila Prabhupada's message to the world

I've been writing something recently about book distribution follow-up strategies. As readers may have gathered, such things are important to me. Firstly, on a logical, strategic level, and on a much more personal level. I came to Krishna myself through a varied campaign.

I'm very grateful to the devotees who spared the time to first speak with me many years ago. My existence as a devotee and as a preacher within the Krishna consciousness movement is the result of their combination of techniques. I had already received Back to Godhead magazines, seen devotees off in the distance at pop festivals, but never had that magic conversation that would bring me to any kind of conviction. The conversation where someone actually cared that I took up the practice of Krishna consciousness.

Energetic book distribution, Back to Godhead subscription, a good mail-order and personal correspondence service were, at one time, a very important part of ISKCON's outreach.

There's been a lot of Srila Prabhupada's books sold in our little country over the years - perhaps some 100 million pieces of literature over almost 40 years. No exagerration. During that time we've come up with various methods of staging our follow-up to book distribution so that people who wanted to know more could gradually get to know the devotees, learn more of our philosophy and life, and find a place for themselves in the wonderful Hare Krishna movement.

From this list we can see that the ISKCON of the 21st century has more than enough information to conduct its preaching activities. Most things we do will never change; how we do them might. Information technology has given us access to digitisation and rapid transit of the message of Krishna, to film, satellite television, and to the Internet. But it also means that atheism uses the same techniques. Ultimately, it will not be our means of transmitting information that will help the mission in the 21st century, but the oldest technique of all: making friends.

The current demographics of ISKCON tell the story that we now have many more people and many more centres in countries where ISKCON’s presence would have been unimaginable before. But out of the quarter million more people that ISKCON has since the day that Srila Prabhupada stood under a tree in a New York park, hardly 5% of them live in the communal way that he envisaged as being most helpful for spiritual life.

The Congregational Development Ministry is pleased to announce the release of a new book: The Nectar of Congregational Preaching.

For the past ten years the Congregational Development Ministry has worked to extend Srila Prabhupada's mercy by creating programs such as Bhakti-vriksha and the Siksha-program. These preaching programs and many others are detailed in the book, along with statements from Srila Prabhupada and the previous acaryas on the necessity of engaging congregational members in the Hare Krishna movement.

The heart of The. Nectar of Congregational Preaching is statements from over 100 GBC leaders, gurus, Srila Prabhupada disciples and senior devotes. ISKCON's most noted leaders speak candidly on their vision for developing the congregation according to the desires of Srila Prabhupada and the guru parampara. This makes the book particularly suited to clear any doubts ISKCON devotees and leaders may have regarding the importance of congregational development, and enthuse those who have dedicated their lives to other aspects of Srila Prabhupada's preaching movement to include the congregation in their planning and vision.

This article has been published previously in our Congregational Development Journal. It is a speech given by HG Ravindra Swarup prabhu at the Third Annual Congregational Preaching Night, Sridham Mayapur, March 14, 2002, and describes the emergence of congregational preaching in ISKCON, and it's relevance not only in remote villages, but in the 'developed' world as well.

Congregational Development in America, a Historical Perspective

I was asked to speak about the history of the development of congregation in ISKCON. It’s amazing to see how this Ministry has grown and developed, because in the beginning we didn’t know what a congregation was; we didn’t know what to do with it when we got one. When I first began to associate with devotees, in Philadelphia in 1970, I was married, with one child and another on the way. I owned my own house — actually very near the temple — I was a graduate student in Religious Studies, and it looked like I had a good career ahead of me. And the devotees were absolutely convinced that to be Krishna conscious I had to give it all up — studies and home — and move into the temple, with wife and children. Otherwise, I would always remain a karmi. I wanted to be Krishna conscious, so eventually we rented out our house and moved into the temple.