Fellow Travellers: Grateful for the Living Wholeness Community

By Dr. John Warlow

Why am I so grateful for the Living Wholeness Community?

Three reasons come immediately to mind.

It is through this distinct community that God has helped me grow personally. It has extended my capacity far beyond my own limitations. And although the journey has been costly, I would not exchange it for anything.

I am now in my early seventies. Jill and I have been married for forty-four years and have been blessed with five children and eight grandchildren. I continue to work as a counselling clinical psychiatrist, walking alongside adults, children and families each week.

Many people know me as the “finder” of the Christian Wholeness Framework (CWF) and as one of the co-founders of the Living Wholeness Community with David and Susanne Nikles. For more than thirty years I have also had the privilege of partnering with Dr Carolyn Russell. Together these relationships have produced conferences, training, books and a growing movement that has spread far beyond anything I could ever have imagined.

Yet that is only the visible story.

The deeper story is how this community has changed me.

1. Community – From Aloneness to Belonging

Perhaps this story really began long before Living Wholeness.

I grew up as a missionary kid in India. Although I had a wonderful family, I often felt alone. As a teenager I was introverted and socially anxious. I longed for meaningful relationships but found them difficult.

Over time I intentionally built friendships and gradually experienced the richness of genuine connection. God also gave me Jill, and together we have enjoyed a strong, growing and deeply connected marriage.

Looking back, I can now see that God was preparing me for something much bigger than I realised.

Thirty years ago Dr Carolyn Russell and I began building what became the Christian Wholeness Counselling Centre in Brisbane. Three times it seemed to die. Three times we wondered whether the journey had come to an end. Yet each time God kept us going. Carolyn remained a faithful partner as together we learnt, taught, wrote and explored what God was revealing.

Then, twenty years ago this year, another chapter began.

On Friday 13 January 2006, seated around the round table that still sits in our home today, David and Susanne Nikles joined us. Together, there, we founded the Living Wholeness Community.

As we finished that first meeting, my final words to them were simple:

“How can I serve you?”

Those words have continued to shape the culture of our community.

We were not simply building another organisation. We were learning what it meant to become fellow travellers—serving one another while partnering in the gospel for the growth of God’s Kingdom.

Over the years many others have joined this journey. Harry Hoffman, Jake Finn, Yoshi, Karen Lynch, Dr Reupah Phillips, John Allison, Prof Jill Willis, practitioners serving faithfully in restricted countries, and many others have become part of a rich shared history.

One memory captures it perfectly.

During a leadership gathering in Hong Kong in 2014, Harry Hoffman and I were walking along the beach. Harry was trying to describe what Living Wholeness actually was. Then he stopped, smiled (I think!) and simply said,

“So… Living Wholeness is a community.”

He was right.

Living Wholeness is not primarily a programme.

It is not primarily an organisation.

It is not primarily a teaching ministry.

It is a community.

When I turned seventy, around seventy people gathered with the theme, I gave what felt like my eulogy while I was still alive – “Most Improved.” We laughed together, but I realised how true it was.

If I have grown, so much of that growth has happened because of this community.

God’s answer to my aloneness was not greater independence.

It was belonging… in…

… a Distinct Community. Living Wholeness Community describes itself and is known as a community that learns, lives, servant leads and gives the Christian Wholeness Framework. I remember 35 years ago here in Brisbane knowing that if God was not with this, it was a waste of time, leading me to pray, as with Moses, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how should it be known that I have found favour in your sight, owned your people? Is it not you’re going with us so that we are distinct, owned your people from every other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 3315, 16: ESV)

The Framework has not simply been something I discovered.

It has become something that has continually reshaped me.

Looking back, I can see that God was preparing me for it throughout my life—from finding Christ as a seven-year-old in India, through seasons of brokenness as a young adult, to the desperate years of preparing for my Fellowship examinations in psychiatry.

The Framework was never something I invented.

It was something I found.

That has always made it easy to give away.

What began as a simple visual framework gradually became a way of connecting, understanding, responding and engaging help throughout every area of life.

Its picture language has shaped my marriage, my parenting, my friendships, my professional practice and, above all, my relationship with God.

Years ago I scribbled notes onto a table tennis ball to explain what eventually became “Relationship Tennis.” More than forty years later, that faded ball still sits beside me as I write these words.

Our children learnt to walk back down the Steps towards connection.

Sometimes they even reminded me how to do it.

The Framework continually reminds me that before I can give truth away, I must first live it myself.

I have learnt.

I have sought to live.

Only then have I been able to give, while connecting again in community, learning again and living again!

Perhaps nowhere has this become more precious than in my relationship with God.

Almost every day I remind myself of His Five Ps—His Presence, His Placement, His Purposes and His Provisions—because I already have Him.

The Shapes have become part of my prayers.

“You are my Centre.

You are my Source.

You are my Home.

You are my Goal.

You are my Head.”

Over the years those truths have moved from being theological concepts to lived realities. These sets of “five” (and so many more) are easy to put onto the fingers of my hand which are more in easy reach of my heart. They help me to embody the wholistic transformative language of the Christian Wholeness Framework, based on the Bible.

In reminding me that God is interested in my whole person, and yet also at times lighter and more relaxed. For someone who naturally lives in serious conversations and deep waters, learning the importance of fun, ordinary conversation, rest, sleep and caring for my body has been an important part of becoming more whole.

So grateful for this distinct community.

2. Capacity – God Multiplied What I Could Never Do Alone

As a teenager I often prayed one simple prayer:

“Lord, use me.”

Like many young people, I imagined that meant doing great things for God.

Years later someone gently reminded me of that prayer and observed,

“Perhaps this is one prayer God has clearly answered.”

Looking back, I think they were right.

God answered that prayer, but not in the way I expected.

He did not make me into an impressive individual.

Instead, He placed me within a community.

He surrounded me with people whose gifts complemented my own and whose lives extended far beyond my reach.

Living Wholeness has become like a healthy tree.

I do not need to run around trying to care for every branch.

My responsibility is simply to remain faithful to the branches God has connected to me, trusting that they, in turn, nurture others.

Recently, while on holiday, I found myself looking at photos of my break, mixed in with photos from Uganda where others within the Living Wholeness Community were training and serving. I was far away, resting with my family, yet the work continued.

That filled me with enormous gratitude.

Succession is already built into the community.

As we train others, they train others.

The tree continues to grow.

I remain where God has placed me.

That has been one of the greatest lessons of my life.

3. Cost – Every Meaningful Community Costs Something

None of this has been easy.

Relationships are wonderful because they are alive.

They are also costly because they are vulnerable.

There have been seasons when I wondered whether everything would collapse, just as happened during the early years of the Christian Wholeness Counselling Centre.

Many relationships never became lasting partnerships.

There were countless meetings, conversations and hopeful beginnings that appeared to lead nowhere.

Some opportunities never eventuated.

Some partnerships ended in disappointment.

There has been much apparent wastage.

My wife and family have also shared that cost. I hope the cost was not as expensive as what I had to pay as a missionary kid in India. And yet with these costs, I am deeply grateful that each of our children has developed passion – and most of us – a heart for God’s Kingdom and, in different ways, for His mission.

Looking back, I no longer see those experiences as failures.

They became God’s classroom.

He taught me perseverance and grit.

He taught me humility.

He taught me dependence.

He taught me to remain faithful regardless of visible results.

Community has been costly.

But it has always been worth it.

Looking Back

As I look back over the decades, I find myself filled with gratitude.

I am grateful for Jill.

I am grateful for my family.

I am grateful for the privilege of serving as a psychiatrist.

But I am especially grateful for the Living Wholeness Community.

As a lonely missionary kid in India, I could never have imagined this journey.

As a socially anxious teenager praying, “Lord, use me,” I had no idea how God would answer.

He answered that prayer, not by making me into someone extraordinary, but by placing me within an extraordinary community of fellow travellers.

The Christian Wholeness Framework and the Living Wholeness Community have not simply become my life’s work.

They have become part of God’s gracious work in me.

And that work continues.

For that, I am deeply grateful.