WHAT IS LIVING WHOLENESS

WHAT IS LIVING WHOLENESS?

Living Wholeness desires to support the person to grow to Godly wholeness (healing and sanctification) across the spectrum of spiritual, psychological, physical, and social areas. This is within themselves, their relational settings, within marriage and family, within communities, within societies, within nations and regions of the world. Living Wholeness is both for those who are disheartened, disconnected, despairing, distressed or deprived, and also for those who seek a way to walk with these people towards lives of wholistic God-centredness.

Vision: Wholistic God-centred transformation of the whole person.

Purpose: Offering people a way, through the Christian Wholeness Framework, (CWF) to live out the Bible’s Great Commandment, New Commandment and Great Commission: intimacy with God, imitating Christ, influencing for the gospel, all through being indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Values: Living Wholeness values love and acceptance, truth and integrity, choice and hope, God-centred lives and relationships, personal vulnerability, and facing life’s issues in a healthy way. Living Wholeness also values healthy relational processes, by offering choice, respect and value to individuals and people within systems.

Strategy: To encourage and equip people who together, relying on God and walking relationally with others, learn, live, use, and give to others the Christian Wholeness Framework. To offer education and training, (primarily train the trainer), supported by relevant resources, and growing the Living Wholeness Community. This is all increasingly undergirded by research.

Living Wholeness as a Community

Living Wholeness Community is a small part of the whole church, and with it, seeks to facilitate this God-centred transformation of the whole person within their local community and church through the whole gospel (echoing the mission statement within the Lausanne Covenant, for the whole church to be taking the whole gospel to the whole world – John Stott, Chris Wright and others). The community is a place of support, service and linking/networking together.

In the field of counselling, it is vital that inner change precedes outer change. In this world generally the story is that hurt people hurt people, on personal, community, society and international scales. The Living Wholeness Community seeks to swim against the tide and find the space where instead, transformed people transform people, on an increasingly positive scale.

Living Wholeness has an awesome team of people who volunteer with passion and dedication far beyond expectation. These people who are being transformed, facilitated by the Christian Wholeness Framework make up the alive and dynamic organism of the Living Wholeness Community. 

There is much room for you – to benefit, to be transformed, to offer your capacity and gifting to assist others. You can have a place in this story – as you have a place in His story, as you learn, live, use and give the Christian Wholeness Framework.

The Christian Wholeness Framework

The Christian Wholeness Framework is the ‘operating system’ of Living Wholeness. As its name implies, it is unashamedly attesting to be Christ-centred, taking a whole view, and using a clear frame or structure. It is based on the Bible, centred on God, and promoting the Christian church’s central calling towards transformation of individuals and communities across the world. Living Wholeness is a broad-based, multicultural, interdenominational Christian community and embraces people from a range of streams of Christian faith including contemplative, holiness, evangelical, charismatic, social justice and sacramental.

The Christian Wholeness Framework offers a Biblical anthropology of humanity, and a dynamic robust theology, psychology, biology and sociology of change. Wholeness highlights the whole person growing in the context of the whole gospel. Wholeness facilitates an integrated and comprehensive approach to broad and deep change.

The Christian Wholeness Framework provides a universally transferable picture language relevant and applicable across cultures, ages and gender. The CWF facilitates a comprehensive understanding of personal God-centred transformation. It identifies five Steps in the process of healthy human relating, undergirding the five Shapes which represent humanity, our relationship with God, others, and himself. It offers:

  • a structure in which other models of people and change can be integrated
  • a map assisting individuals to accurately locate their present position relative to life goals, thereby elucidating a realistic way ahead
  • and an integrated therapeutic tool bag which combine to form the Living Wholeness Approach.

This Living Wholeness Approach is a therapeutic process developed for and used by counsellors and coaches, based on the ‘operating system’ of the Christian Wholeness Framework. It has been tested in the fires of thousands of counselling clients, over many years, settings, cultures, and issues. It is simple and yet sophisticated, well presented, and easily understood. It encourages, inspires and challenges the finding of wholistic transformation for all clients. This approach has successfully empowered many people in their life roles at home, with friends and at work or place of education from Australia to Asia and beyond. 

The Christian Wholeness Framework is also helpful within Church contexts: small groups, pastoral care, ministry, and mission. It appears to be effective in lay and professional counselling, coaching, mentoring, discipleship, and spiritual direction/accompaniment. 

The Christian Wholeness Framework is now over 30 years old. It offers probably one of the most comprehensive and integrated approaches to working wholistically with people. Interest and uptake is rising rapidly, especially in Asia. 

Because it is Biblically robust, theologically and psychologically integrated, and because it is systematic, teachable, and culturally sensitive, as well as having broad application and availability, it has the capacity to become a force for God-centred personal and social transformation across the majority and the developed world.

The Living Wholeness Institute

Living Wholeness Institute

Living Wholeness Institute oversees the development, accreditation, and co-ordination of Living Wholeness services, training, resources and research, undergirded by efficient infrastructure and persistent prayer.

Training: Living Wholeness offers a wide range of courses across the breadth of personal growth, with introductory level, small groups, lay pastoral and professional counsellor courses, and up to a four-year program for future Educators. Online training is becoming increasingly used to deliver training.

Resources: Living Wholeness Institute offers various products, training programs and resources to individuals, students, small groups, churches, lay counsellors, professional counsellors/coaches, trainers. Living Wholeness has a large range of resources. Many are in multiple languages. 

Research: Living Wholeness Institute seeks to be a research-based organization. It draws on quality research findings and is dedicated to developing further research on CWF.

Prayer: Living Wholeness personnel seek to abide in Jesus and prayerfully undergird all intrapersonal and interpersonal development.

Impact: The impact of Living Wholeness is strategic, deep, broad, long term, and growing. Impact continually expands. Living Wholeness Institute currently offers training in around 14 Asian developing nations as well as in Australia.

Funding: An Australian not for profit company, Living Wholeness Ltd. receives funding from donations, training fees, and sale of resources. This covers costs of administration, project work primarily within the developing Asian world, resource development, and research costs. Except for a paid administrator, all personnel are volunteers.

If you feel prompted to donate to Living Wholeness work, you can donate online via the website, or alternatively contact the CEO for bank transfer and mail-a-cheque options.

Contact for enquiries:
Dr David Nikles, LW CEO
david.n@livingwholeness.org

Living Wholeness Ltd is fully compliant with ACNC requirements for financially transparency, has zero tolerance of terrorism, slavery, trafficking, bullying, and is child safe. Living Wholeness does not work with any organizations involved in such activities. Donations are currently not tax deductible.

The CWF is the most comprehensive road map to the process of counseling others that I know of

– Prof. Simon Lee, PhD Theology, PhD Psychology,
Retired Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong