Fellow Travellers: Christian Wholeness Framework for Christian Counseling and Transformations

By Jenny Oh

It has already been seven years since our journey with Living Wholeness Ministry began. When I look back, I can see how God was providentially preparing us for a season that none of us could have anticipated. In 2019, I participated in PACT-3, the Pastoral Advance Counseling Training, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I remember sitting next to a missionary from Wuhan, China. At the time, Wuhan was simply a place represented by a fellow student in our classroom. Little did we know that, only months later, it would become known around the world as the epicenter of an epidemic that would develop into the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Our PACT cohort continued with PACT 3.2 and 3.3 through an unfamiliar and challenging mode of communication called Zoom. None of us were prepared for the profound impact the pandemic would have on our personal lives, ministries, communities, and the world. Yet, despite the uncertainty and disruption, our cohort persevered and completed the program.

Looking back, I believe the way Living Wholeness Ministry became established in Asia was not accidental. I see God’s providence in the timing and development of this ministry. He was preparing counselors, pastors, missionaries, and people-care workers with a framework and language that would become increasingly important during a time when people everywhere were experiencing grief, isolation, trauma, fear, and spiritual questions.

I serve as the Director of Oasis House Christian Counseling Center in Cambodia. Since completing PACT, we have consistently sent our counselors to receive further training through Living Wholeness and PACT. Over time, we have established a 60-hour Certified Lay Counseling Training Program at Oasis House to equip pastors, seminary students, NGO leaders, and others who serve as counselors and caregivers in different capacities.

Living Wholeness generously sent trainers to Cambodia during the first two years of our program. By the third and fourth years, something significant had happened: we were able to translate and contextualize the curriculum into Khmer and have our own Khmer staff, who were PACT graduates, teach the material. This development has been especially meaningful because it represents more than simply translating words from one language to another. It has allowed the principles of Christian counseling and wholeness to be communicated through the language, culture, and lived experience of Cambodian people.

When we first established Oasis House, one of my primary hopes was to develop a truly holistic approach to counseling. I wanted our counseling to recognize that human beings are not merely psychological or emotional beings, but spiritual beings as well. Our goal should therefore be more than simply reducing psychological or emotional pain. We desire to see people experience transformation and greater wholeness in their relationship with God, themselves, others, and their communities.

This is where the Christian Wholeness Framework (CWF) has been particularly valuable. CWF is explicitly Christian while also integrating theological understanding with professional psychological concepts. It provides a framework through which counselors can honor both the complexity of human experience and the centrality of faith.

One of the most powerful concepts within the framework is the Connecting and Understanding step, or C&U. At first, it may seem almost too simple. Yet its simplicity is precisely what makes it so powerful. Before attempting to solve problems, provide answers, or develop interventions, we are invited to connect with and understand the person before us.

This principle extends far beyond the counseling room. It has profound implications for missions, ministry, leadership, and people care. In cross-cultural ministry, it can be tempting to begin with projects, programs, buildings, or solutions. C&U reminds us to begin somewhere else: with people. We first seek to understand their culture, their beliefs, their stories, their experiences, and their hearts. Only then can we begin to understand what genuine care and meaningful ministry might look like.

The various Shapes within the framework the Triangle, Square, Circle, Pyramid, and, of course, the Cross, also provide visual ways of understanding how our relationship with God is integral to the counseling process. These simple images help communicate concepts that can otherwise feel abstract and difficult to explain.

There is an important distinction between Christians who counsel and Christian counseling. A person may be a Christian and practice counseling skills, but Christian counseling intentionally integrates established counseling principles with biblical theology and Christian spirituality. Its goal is not only emotional health, but also spiritual growth, relational restoration, and personal transformation through a Christ-centered framework.

Dr. David Augsburger captures this distinction beautifully in his book Christian Counseling: “You are a very special person, deeply loved by God.” He explains that when Christian counselors communicate this truth, they are not merely adopting a therapeutic attitude. Rather, they recognize a person’s worth as something given by God and grounded in the way God has created and ordered the world.

Having a practical framework that embodies this understanding of Christian counseling is surprisingly rare. For us at Oasis House, Living Wholeness has provided not only a framework, but also practical tools that are both integrative and comprehensive. These resources have helped us serve as counselors, trainers, missionaries, pastors, and caregivers with greater clarity and confidence.

As I reflect on these past seven years, I am deeply grateful for the people who have invested in Living Wholeness and made this ministry accessible to those of us serving in different parts of the world. I am especially grateful for the “Finder” and for all those who have faithfully carried this vision forward.

What began for me as a training course in Chiang Mai has become part of a much larger story, one that includes Cambodia, our Khmer counselors and trainers, and many others who are seeking to care for people in the midst of a broken and hurting world. I believe this is the heart of Living Wholeness: helping people move beyond simply surviving pain toward a deeper experience of wholeness, transformation, and restored relationship with God and others. And I am grateful that we have been invited to be part of that story.