Ways Of Doing Parchaar

[Heera Singh]

Vaheguru Jee Ka Khalsa, Vaheguru Jee Kee Fateh!

So sumtin was on my mind today... n it kinda sprouted from wha i read in another thread... i was wonderin, since so many youth and adults have strayed away from Sikhi, wha would be the best way to educate, attract, and bring them 'back' to Sikhi...

wha are the best ways of parchaar in the youth and adult communities?

how can we target them?

should we first focus on 'groups' of people who have some sort of 'interest' or do we 'target' the masses on the whole?

why don't us youth (for the most part) get involved wit tings at the local gurdwaras, such as havin english kattha or stuff like that?

how do we 'attract' both youth and adults to even get an interest on Sikhi, Bani, Seva, Simran etcc..??

Was jus curious on the sangats opinion on this...

Vaheguru Jee Ka Khalsa, Vaheguru Jee Kee Fateh!

[Punjabi_Link]

I think there are enough events out there that non-sikhs (adult ones at least) don't mind attending, but the problem is that these events aren't promoted effectively and also I find that non-sikhs don't feel comfortable & unwelcome (to certain extent) at these kinds of events at all. So people who are running these sikh events need to do a better job promoting these events (don't just promote it in the gurdwara) and atmosphere of these events need to be more friendly and make non-sikhs feel comfortable (maybe dumb it down a bit when preaching about sikhi to them).

[Punjabi_Link]

Oh yeah, make sure you people don't held every sikh event at the gurdwara. Maybe running these sikh events at college campus or having some kind of fair would be a great way to attract interest from non-sikhs.

[japmans]

the mormon community does a wicked job at attracting youth to their churches. i have a friend who was telling me of all sorts of things.. the biggest one is having youth dances (which obnvviously wouldn`t work for our community) and it's also their most successful initiative... it's a clean atmosphere, but teenagers are usually down to have an excuse to hang out at a dance and try to uhh.."pick up"

but what ends up happening is that some of these non-committed teenagers make friendships with people inside the church, who then teach them spiritual-based things..and it sprouts from there.

i know that in toronto, jaspaul singh's wicked at getting people out weekly to play hockey, so there's a bunch of singhs and non-singhs who get together and play hockey together..thingsl ike that are important..if that can be extended to include a group dinner every other week or something where everyone can hang out... that's the secret.

the key is building relationships outside of sikhi and spirituality... people that have left sikhi have left it for a reason, and they've made that choice... they do NOT want to be coerced back into it, they do NOT wana be preached to... and that's usually the fear they have of retaining sikh friends...that they're just gonna get preached to all the time...

the best way of doing parchar is by not doing parchar,... or to rephrase, the best way to do parchar is to not intend on donig parchar... lectures don't appeal to people... people need interaction. people need companioinship.. people need person-to-person relationships.... in relation tothe majority, there's probably very few souls out there who get isnpired only by naam/keertan/bani, few souls who get inspired by lectures/vichaars/camps... and probably more who get inspired cuz of a friend... no i don't have stats, but human nature would suggest that to be true, and gurbani backs it up that only the luckiest of the lucky get inspired by naam.

sometimes it takes other activities/initiatives to get people INTO it... before they actually create a relationship with baani.

[dalsingh101]

There is loads we can do I think.

We could have a Sikh nursery at gurdwaras in the daytime for a few hours a day. Extra classes for people taking major exams during the appropriate period (booster classes) to help them.

Increased use of English or bilingual services.

BUT...I think the most important and biggest thing that would cause change would be a warm, nonjudgemental, genuine and friendly community to welcome you...which isn't happening any time soon. Right now, in the Panjabi community we are in extreme competition with each other over our cars, houses, businesses, wealth, children etc. etc.

[Heera Singh]

great responses guys...

n japs the whole 'dinner' type concept sounds VERY good... last year COSS arranged a 'formal' dinner thing where they had some positive parchaar type things... had a lil 'play', had some speeches', and a gatka demonstration, and of course FOOD :wub: it was a great environment where amritdharee's and non-amritdharee's alike were joined together... both youth and adults... people came as families and i know there was some good social connections made where people started attending keeertans etc... maybe tha's sumtin we shud do again this year...

the best way of doing parchar is by not doing parchar,... or to rephrase, the best way to do parchar is to not intend on donig parchar...

completely agree... jus like we learned, the best form of 'parchaar' is LIVING it...

buh i dunno.. i dun see much stuff directed towards adults? i mean we have family picnics which is all good, buh i's mostly youth that come out n nah many parents... we should have activities organized for families as a whole...

[Punjabi_Link]

How about having a Sikh day at Canada’s Wonderland? There is an Indian/Punjabi day (I think) at Wonderland so why not try to have a sikh day wonderland (if there isn’t one) too?

[Heera Singh]

i dun tink dat will turn out too well.. haha.. wonderland is too big and too many drunk people will come out...

possibli sumtin at like centre island or cne or sumtin...

[japmans]

whoa...

that's a lil big for a first outreach?

don't get carried away, you're not gnona change the world overnight.

plus the more and bigger events you do, the less that others will be motivated to carry on ni their own cmomunities. they'll jus think "let those guys do it"

focus in your communities, hell, i'm sure your local gurdwara has more than enough people you could "work on". why go to wonderland, cne, ontario place, marineland, or whatever? if you live in mississauga, there's PLENTY of people there who don't have a clue. same goes for brampton, same goes for subruban ottawa, suburban montreal, and subruban new jersey. Surrey's not quite heaven-on-earth either, with respect to the amount of people who've turned away from Sikhi.

what's your goal in doing parchar? inspiring "apostate" sikhs to come back? or inspiring others in the already-sikh community to wanna do their part? there's a fine line between the two.

[Heera Singh]

i dun tink there's netin huge out havin a 'picnic' type'a ting at cne or centre island.. can be advertised at the gurdwara... so get some families to come out...