Fellow Travellers: The Story of Living Wholeness
By David Nikles
Dr John Warlow is the original developer of the Christian Wholeness Framework (CWF) on which Living Wholeness is based. John was preparing for his psychiatry exams in the 1980’s when he ‘found’ the framework. John says he is more the ‘finder’ than the ‘founder’ of the CWF. God revealed it to him as a way to integrate biology, sociology, theology, psychiatry and psychology, to give a wholistic understanding of human nature. Although a few minor adaptions have been added over the years, the basic format remains the same as when John ‘found’ it.
Living Wholeness is the name of the Not-for-Profit Company registered with the ACNC in Australia since May 2019. This company forms the legal platform from which all Living Wholeness work is carried out globally. The Living Wholeness Community uses the CWF as it’s ‘operating system’ or ‘language’. Living Wholeness is also often used in the title of training materials.
Dr John Warlow is a Christian child, adolescent, and family psychiatrist. He was born in Northern India, to missionary parents, educated in Southern India and the UK. He then married Jill, a Kiwi/New Zealander, and now lives in Brisbane, Australia. John teaches CWF within a Pastoral Care in Mental Health course at the Brisbane School of Theology. He also continues to see clients, supervise, train and develop CWF training materials for the Living Wholeness Community internationally.
Dr. Carolyn Russell is a Brisbane based family physician and counsellor, counselling supervisor and educator. Carolyn has journeyed with John for over 30 years now with CWF and was foundational in helping with the establishment of Living Wholeness in Asia. She is a valued member of the senior training team for Living Wholeness, training counsellors in Australia and the Asian region, and a member of the advisory board. She also lectures in pastoral care using CWF at Queensland Theological College, Brisbane.
Dr. David and Mrs. Susanne Nikles: David is an Australian family physician who entered the field of counselling training over the last 20 years. Susanne, also Australian, originally an Occupational Therapist, completed her Master’s in counselling in the 90’s. They were serving in China since 2005 and in response to the needs around them for personal transformation and counselling training, they sought a robust approach that could integrate psychology and theology. Dr. John Warlow introduced the CWF to them and has continued to journey with them as they learned and trained it in Asia for the last 20 years. They found it be most helpful approach to integrative Christian counselling they had encountered in their 30 years each of professional life.
As the work grew, in 2021, David and Susanne invited others who had extensive training and experience in using the CWF, and who had all served internationally, to become the Executive Team for Living Wholeness. The executive team oversee the strategic planning, development, and training for Living Wholeness, while the Board of Directors oversee policy, governance, finance, and strategy.
Broad Uptake: There is notably high uptake with Asian counsellors and pastors, which seemed to be because the CWF is a picture language, with shapes and steps, easily transferable across language barriers, theologically and psychologically robust, and personally transformative. Living Wholeness has also been effective in training counsellors and pastors and bringing personal transformation within wider Asia and beyond. One of the goals embedded in the trainings is that graduates take and train the material in their own language and culture. The graduates from these courses have formed a team of over 100 excellent volunteer trainers who are now training others across Asia.
The Living Wholeness Community offers a range of training and courses, for a range of interested people from friends and family, pastors and leaders, small groups leaders, lay, community and pastoral counsellors, and professional counsellors, and educators. These courses are offered in broader Asia with some uptake in Europe and early days in Africa.
During the last decade more work has been done in the area of writing on the Christian Wholeness Framework, with now around 10 books either completed or in progress. Some of these are available through this website. Increasingly the team are being requested to train pastors in pastoral counselling at theological colleges both in Australia and Asia.
The team are also researching training outcomes using the Framework. There are two academic papers in the pipeline.
Graduates from the longer courses (PACT and LAMP) are invited to join the Master Trainer four-year training which takes them deeper as counsellors, supervisors, trainers, researchers, and course developers. The Living Wholeness community is made up of alumni who have found Living Wholeness to be so helpful, wholistic, thorough, foundational, and life changing, that they want to share this with others
Living Wholeness has thus grown to include a broad community comprising
- Board of Directors
- Executive Leadership Team
- Advisory Board
- Area Coordinators (National Team Leaders see below)
- National Teams
- Graduate Community (PACT and LAMP Master Trainer Graduates and Living Wholeness Training Program Members)
- Core Community of mostly course Alumni
- Broader community of over 1000 people
Philosophy
The emphasis in LW is servant leadership so much so that we have coined the phrase ‘servantship.’ LW seeks to empower those who are worked amongst, offering assistance where invited. Thus, growth needs to be ‘locally driven.’ LW formed a community of essentially national team leaders called Area Coordinators who lead teams within a nation or part of a larger nation (like India/China). These support each other and really are the backbone of future developmental steps.
LW comprises people keen to learn how to help others, how to counsel, and to train others, in their own language and cultural context. Thus, resources need to be available in those languages. LW does not just teach and release, but teach and walk with these people for the long term. Hence the 4 year Master trainer program, which then invites people to join a Graduate Community.
Relationship is central in Asia, in Christian life, and hence in Living Wholeness. LW is relational!
What is the CWF?
The Christian Wholeness Framework provides a robust Biblical understanding of humanity, and God’s redemptive plan for this world. It is comprehensive, cohesive, broad and balanced, effectively integrating theology and psychology.
The CWF offers a uniting picture language of five steps and five shapes which is transferable across cultures, languages, age, and gender. It is foundational across the Integrative Christian Counselling, pastoral care, wholistic evangelism, transformational discipleship, mentoring and coaching space.