Wellbeing for Wesleyan Methodist Ministers
As a Wesleyan movement we have embraced the concept of a "consistent life ethic" and are oriented toward those things that enable life to flourish towards God’s intended purposes. We believe that Jesus came to bring "life in all its fullness" (John 10:10) and that this fullness encompasses us in a holistic way. The Great Commandment expresses vividly what a fully realised human life looks like.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these."
(Mark 9:30-31)
We are people who are freed to love. This is not just something we offer to the world. It is something we are becoming.
As Ministers called to the Great Commission in the Spirit of the Great Commandment we seek to live full, authentic lives that express the fullness we call others to. But because we know the human tendency is to exceed human limits, even in the pursuit of divine imperatives, we accept the necessity of investing in our own wellbeing or hauora. We can see this through some different lenses:
Wellbeing offers INTEGRITY as we live what we proclaim - congruent inner and outer lives
Wellbeing offers HOPE to others as we speak and live the fullness of Jesus
Wellbeing is MISSIONAL as we offer the fullness of Jesus in ways which resonate with our society's increasing embrace of wellbeing
In the Aotearoa-New Zealand context, this idea of Wellbeing or Hauora is captured in an holistic framework that has its roots in Māori understandings of wellbeing.
Te Whare Tapa Wha or the House of Four Walls seeks to capture the breadth of wellbeing across the physical, mental/emotional, spiritual and social spheres of life.
There are four dimensions of Hauora; Taha Tinana (Physical Well-being - health), Taha Hinengaro (Mental and Emotional well-being - self-confidence), Taha Whanau (Social Well-being - self-esteem) and Taha Wairua (Spiritual well-being - personal beliefs).
This concept is not solely a Māori idea. The Samoan Fonofale model encapsulates similar ideas. The Fonua model is a Tongan framework for health which comprises five dimensions of life which are interdependent and complementary to each other. Sino (Physical), ‘Atamai (Mental), Laumalie (Spiritual), KaingaI (Community), and ‘Atakai (Environmental). The Fijian Vanua model mirrors this.
Our Wellbeing model draws on these rich sources of truth and seeks to express the walls and roof of our lives as being grounded in a cornerstone which is Jesus himself.