I caught a few minutes of the Diane Rehm Show on NPR last week. Her guest was author, poet and psychologist Judith Viorst. Viorst, who is 75, was describing her recent experiences when her adult son and his family of five temporarily moved back home.

Most of us with adult children (Norma and I have three) can relate to the experience of kids returning to the roost. The term “Empty Nest Syndrome” is a nisnomer; more apropos is the term “Boomerang Kids.” In the last three years, our guest room has been occupied by five family members (not all at once, thankfully!) — one son, another son twice, one granddaughter, and a sister — as they go through various transitions in employment, education and marital status. Any parent or grandparent who has been there knows all about the physical and emotional chaos that can result when the kids and grandkids move back in.

Viorst has written a book about her experience, titled Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days. Alexander is the youngest of her three adult sons, who — along with his wife and three children — moved in with mom and dad while their home was being renovated. Viorst is famous for her “Alexander” series of children’s books, beginning with
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, published in 1972, back when her own Alexander was still a child.

Viorst says that she and her husband had grown long accustomed to order, neatness, quiet dinners and general tranquilty, when the “Alexander Five” moved in and temporarily turned their world upside down. Rehm asked Ms. Viorst what advice she had for parents who are coping with adult children and grandchildren who have moved back home. Viorst gave an answer that struck me as wise. She said that she made a strict rule for herself, and during those 90 days she reminded herself of it several times each day: “Do not judge, advise, or criticize.”

I’ve thought often about that axiom this past week. It occurs to me that that rule applies not just to boomerang kids, but to all of our personal relationships with family and friends. I think it is an excellent rule for our dealings with adult children.  It is also quite applicable to one’s marriage.

We can count on the rest of the world to do the important work of picking us apart, raking us over the coals, pointing out our faults, and making us feel inadequate and unworthy. Who is going to love and respect us for exactly who we are, right now, warts and all, if not our spouses, parents, siblings and friends?  When we communicate that a loved one needs to make big changes to have our love and respect, we communicate that we really don’t love the person they are right now. Unconditional love means having no such conditions, right?

• Jesus said, Mat 7:1,3: “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. … Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

• Rom 14:4: “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”

• James 4:12: “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?”

The question is often asked: “What exactly did Jesus mean when He said, ‘Do not judge?’” His meaning is to not be critical, particularly in an overbearing, self-righteous way, as He illustrates vividly with the analogy of the speck and the log. Home can be a miserable place when there is someone in it who has ‘the gift of criticism,” and is always berating family members.

• Prov 17:1: “Better is a dry morsel and quietness with it than a house full of feasting with strife.”

• As Spirit-filled Christians, our love and patience should trump our nagging and criticism. Gal 5:22-23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, patience, kindness … gentleness.”

The part of Viorst’s proverb that strikes me the most is “do not advise.” Norma and I are great advice-givers. After all, we are very wise — just ask us. We have immeasurably better knowledge of what our kids and grandkids should be doing than they do. How can we possibly keep our precious pearls of wisdom to ourselves?

Thankfully, our sons respect us enough to occasionally seek out our counsel. Few things make a parent prouder than when a son or daughter asks for advice. But I think Viorst is right that when it comes to unsolicited advice, 99% of it should be kept in the bottle.

If an adult child — or spouse, or sibling, or friend — really is as foolish as we sometimes think, then our advice is wasted on them anyway.

• Prov 23:9: “Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words.”

• Prov 9:7: “He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself.”

• Prov 29:9: “When a wise man has a controversy with a foolish man, the foolish man either rages or laughs, and there is no rest.”

But the odds are that that loved one really isn’t so foolish after all.  He may have a different perspective or take a different approach than we might, but we need to have enough confidence and provide enough space to allow the ones we love to figure a few things out for themselves.

North Side Christian Church, 2526 NW 122nd, Oklahoma City, will celebrate its 40th anniversary this coming Sunday, Nov. 11.

North Side played a key role in my first full-time ministry. When I graduated from Midwest Christian College in 1975, I became the founding campus minister of the Fellowship of Christian University Students, a campus ministry at Oklahoma State University. North Side was one of our “charter” supporting churches, and some North Side college students were among the members of our first FOCUS student group.

At the time, I did not know that North Side was such a new congregation. Apparently it was founded in 1967. I moved to Oklahoma as a teenager in 1970, and launched the FOCUS ministry five years later. I am curious now to know more about how North Side came into existence. An intentional church plant? A church split? I wonder.

I do remember that in those days, North Side was a young, enthusiastic and growing congregation. Bill Park was the minister at Northside for many of those early years. Bill will be the guest speaker at the 40th anniversary celebration this Sunday.

Forest Hill Christian Church will be dedicating their new 600-seat sanctuary Sun., Nov. 4th at 2 p.m. You are invited to come and share in this joyous occasion.

Hat tip to Christ’s Church of Yukon newsletter.

I just established a new category on Joshua One called “Christian Celebrity Gurus.” In the process I have apparently coined a new phrase. I just Googled it, and of more than 25 billion(!) pages indexed by that search engine, I received back exactly ZERO hits. Amazing! I do several Google searches a day, and I do not recall the last time I didn’t get a single hit for a word or phrase. So, Joshua One proudly (?) presents: “Christian Celebrity Gurus.” (Cue applause.)

Earlier this year, we created the Joshua One blog when we split our earlier blog into two. We redefined that earlier blog, Terra Extraneus, as a law blog, and moved our faith-related posts to this domain. I transferred about 150 posts that Rod and I wrote during 2005-2006 to Joshua One.

However, I never undertook the daunting task of recategorizing all of those posts (and repairing all of the links that changed with the transfer) until now. As I finally began that project this week, I came across a few posts about Joel Osteen, the pastor of America’s largest church. So I created a “Joel Osteen” category. Then I came to a few posts about Pat Robertson. Another category?

I don’t really care to give the impression that a big reason why Joshua One Ministries exists is to take potshots at Osteen and Robertson and other members of the Christian celebrity roundtable. I would just as soon mind my own business and stick to speaking positively about the important stuff: God’s Word, church health, etc. However, as church leaders we have a responsibility from time to time to comment on trends that are having a big influence on our fellow Christians and churches.

We will not allow such posts to become a primary topic of conversation here at Joshua One, any more than I would preach about Joel Osteen or Pat Robertson week after week at my church. But I have mentioned both Osteen and Robertson on occasion from the pulpit, and we have mentioned them occasionally on this blog. To categorize those references, “Christian Celebrity Gurus” should do quite nicely.

A celebrity is someone who is “widely known and often referred to.” The Scriptures give us little guidance on responding to the celebrity of others, since it is a modern-day peculiarity. But when everyone is talking about somebody or something, church leaders occassionally need to speak up to provide a Biblical perspective to what is being said.

As I wrote in a January 2006 post titled “The Modern Church: Blowing in the Wind”:

Many believers feel uncomfortable when a Christian challenges a well-known Christian leader publicly. Perhaps one imagines that we should pull Rick Warren [the topic of that Jan. 2006 post] aside, maybe meet him for a coffee at Starbucks, to discuss our concerns. Unable to do that, some think perhaps we should just say nothing at all. Meanwhile, using mass media, Christian leaders are able to influence millions of believers and tens of thousands of churches all over the world. Modern Christians and churches especially seem eager to be carried along by every new wind that blows through the church. The anthem of the 21st-century Church could be “Blowing in the Wind.”

When we become convicted that the “the latest new thing” seriously misses the mark of God’s Word, we are right to speak up. And when the Church Gurus disseminate their ideas through the mass media, the only effective way to discuss or disagree with them is also through the mass media. We should do so in love and with respect, but there is usually more cowardice than honor in remaining silent.

Hey, it looks like I came close to originating the term “Christian Celebrity Gurus” back then. Obviously, the label includes a hint of sarcasm. A guru is someone widely regarded as a a spiritual leader and expert. Frankly, although men like Joel Osteen and Pat Robertson may be good men and brothers in the faith, the Church is in pretty bad shape when such men have become the gurus of our day.

There are some Christian leaders who have set truly great examples for the modern church by their lives, their faith, and their scholarship. Examples that come to mind include Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Chuck Colson, Watchman Nee, and John MacArthur. (Can you imagine C.S. Lewis and Joel Osteen having a vigorous theological exchange?) “Christian Celebrity Gurus” is not a category for such men.

This category is for posts in which we challenge and perhaps even criticize the latest fads and trends and the Christian celebrity superstars who are promoting them. Hopefully humility will prompt us to think twice before each post to this category. But sometimes, it is just not possible to keep silent.

Pope Benedict XVI has issued his Christmas Day message. It is 1415 words, the full text of which can be found here. That link points to the Vatican’s official English translation of the Pope’s annual Christmas Urbi et Orbi – “to the City and the World.” In his brief address, the 79-year-old pope mentions many modern events, good and bad – space travel, genetic science, the Internet, hunger, poverty, “unbridled consumerism,” terrorism, conflicts in Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Darfur.

 I am, of course, no Catholic, but the Pope’s holiday message rings true. Here are the last two paragraphs of his message:

A community saved by Christ. This is the true nature of the church, which draws her nourishment from his word and his eucharistic body. Only by rediscovering the gift she has received can the church bear witness to Christ the savior before all people. She does this with passionate enthusiasm, with full respect for all cultural and religious traditions; she does so joyfully, knowing that the One she proclaims takes away nothing that is authentically human, but instead brings it to fulfillment. In truth, Christ comes to destroy only evil, only sin; everything else, all the rest, he elevates and perfects. Christ does not save us from our humanity, but through it; he does not save us from the world, but came into the world, so that through him the world might be saved (cf. Jn 3:17).

Dear brothers and sisters, wherever you may be, may this message of joy and hope reach your ears: God became man in Jesus Christ, he was born of the Virgin Mary and today he is reborn in the church. He brings to all the love of the Father in heaven. He is the savior of the world! Do not be afraid, open your hearts to him and receive him, so that his kingdom of love and peace may become the common legacy of each man and woman. Happy Christmas!

I am moved by the call for the church to “rediscover the gift she has received” of salvation through Christ. Christ is still, this day, the Savior of the world.  If Christians forget or neglect the gift of Christ, how can we “bear witness to Christ the savior before all people”?