Chapter 12
12
WORLD, MEET YOUR REBELUTIONARIES
Transforming your mission from a decision into a destiny
After a grueling two-hour hike, we finally reached the top of the ridge in Colorado’s Front Range. The high walls of the gorge had blocked the spring sun on our way up, and our path had taken us back and forth across the canyon stream at least a dozen times. Both of us had managed to slip at least once on the icy stones, and the lower legs of our jeans were frozen stiff. Now heat from the sun began to warm our bodies as we took in the panorama.
It was breathtaking.
Below us we could see the old castle at Glen Eyrie surrounded by dark green forest. Beyond that lay the city of Colorado Springs, framed by a rich blue sky with a scattering of white clouds, and on our left, the jewel that is Garden of the Gods, with its towering red rock formations. The only thing rising above us was Pikes Peak, blanketed with snow. Even the hawks soared below us.
We carefully made our way to a narrow shelf of rock that jutted out over the canyon before settling down to rest, read our Bibles, and worship. Perched between earth and sky, we felt our smallness and God’s unimaginable greatness.
That unforgettable morning came during a busy and stressful time. We had just finished launching the results from the Modesty Survey and were gearing up for our first national conference tour that summer. Even our trip to Colorado was Rebelution-and business-related. But as we sat there in the sun at the top of the world, our upcoming conferences suddenly didn’t seem quite so overwhelming and we didn’t feel quite so tired.
A good book can be like our experience on the mountain that day. You are lifted out of the daily grind and transported to a new place. You spend time on the summit seeing things from a new perspective and with greater clarity. Your strength begins to come back and you’re ready to return to the valley and live with fresh purpose.
We pray that this book has been that way for you. Like we said at the start, this is a different kind of teen book. It challenges you to embrace a better but harder way of living your teen years and beyond. We know that Do Hard Things is not an easy book with an easy message, but we’ve tried to do more than just talk about ideas. We wanted to show you the beauty of those ideas in action in the lives of young people around the world.
As you look back, we hope you’ll see how far you’ve come.
First, we exposed the Myth of Adolescence and explored the true purpose of the teen years as our best opportunity to launch ourselves into an exciting future. Then we unpacked the rebelutionary mind-set of “do hard things” and broke it down into Five Kinds of Hard things that can change your world:
• things that take you outside your comfort zone—taking risks to grow
• things that go beyond what’s expected or required—pursuing excellence
• things that are too big to accomplish alone—dreaming and daring big
• things that don’t earn an immediate payoff—being faithful and choosing integrity
• things that go against the cultural norm—taking a stand for what is right
In the last few chapters we’ve stepped back and looked at the Rebelution as a movement. We asked what it would look like for a new generation to be salt and light by bringing together the three pillars of the Rebelution: Christlike character, God-honoring competence, and world-spanning collaboration. In the previous chapter we caught a glimpse of the inspiring stories already being written by this growing counterculture of rebelutionaries.
Now you’ve reached the summit, and we hope you have a personal vision for a new and exciting way of living. As you get ready to head back to the action-packed world of real life, we want to contribute a few thoughts to encourage and inspire you. Because real life is where you’ll begin to create the most important story of this entire book: your own.
MAKING IT STICK
A mountaintop experience can get us excited. At the time, priorities are clear and the path ahead is easily visible. But once you start your descent, the excitement can fade. As you return to the valley, you start to see more obstacles and less of a view. You don’t feel quite as invincible (or, as happened to one of us on the way down from our summit, you lose your footing and land hands first on a cactus).
Getting from big idea to meaningful change is tough.
So we have to ask: How can you make a successful transition from reading about big ideas to actually putting them into practice? How do you make what you’ve learned stick? And—worst-case scenario—how do you keep the majestic view in mind when you’re digging cactus spines out of your hand?
The answer is to chart a clear course.
In this chapter we want to show you how to make your rebelution an experience that will endure and grow, an experience that God will bless. The following three examples won’t match your real-world challenges exactly, but we think each story illustrates practical solutions for any rebelutionary who is ready to take his or her first steps.
OUT WITH THE OLD
Noah is a high-school junior from Georgia. He has realized that for him, being a rebelutionary means finally getting serious about the unseen compromises in his life. His youth pastor recently gave a hard-hitting message on Hebrews 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
Noah knows that some weights in his life are keeping him from running his best race. His Halo addiction, for example. He’s one of the better players he knows and for good reason—he plays almost every day, often late into the night. His grades suffer for it, and so do his friendships and family. In fact, besides going to church with his parents and his younger sister each week, he rarely spends time with them.
This isn’t the first time Noah has felt convicted about these things. Last summer he went on a short-term mission trip to Mexico with his youth group. “After I got home I cut back on Halo for the rest of the summer,” he says. “But once school started up, I don’t know, I just kind of slipped back into old routines.”
But this time is going to be different. “I know that if I really want to start doing hard things, I have to get rid of some old things first,” he explains.
Step number one? “The Xbox has to go.”
Here’s Noah’s five-step rebelutionary action plan:
1. Put my Xbox 360 for sale on eBay. Noah isn’t saying he will never play Halo again, but he recognizes the need for a clean and total break. Plus, telling his friends at school that he got rid of his Xbox will give him a perfect opportunity to explain why he’s doing it.
2. Rearrange my room—literally. Prior to this step, Noah’s room was the Halo den. All the furniture was arranged to face the TV. Even the posters on the wall were for video games. Now the TV has been moved into the garage, and a lot of stuff has gone in the trash or been packed away in boxes. Noah has designed a “do hard things” poster for his door and cleared off his desk to make space for studying. The physical act of rearranging his room has helped reinforce his decision to be a rebelutionary.
3. Talk to Pastor Jon about reading some good books. Noah used to read a lot when he was younger but not so much lately. He decided to ask his pastor to recommend some good books from the church library.
4. Spend personal time out with sis at least once a week. Noah can remember the year he entered high school and the new challenges it brought—he’d always wished he had an older brother to teach him the ropes. Now his sister, Michelle, is going through the transition, and Noah wants to be there for her. Whether it’s a run to Starbucks for coffee after school or a quick trip to the grocery store together, it will strengthen their relationship and give them time to talk.
5. Join Dad or Mom on a work project at least twice a month. Noah’s father works around the house almost every weekend, but on the rare occasions when Noah has helped, he has tended toward a different room or the other side of the yard. Noah has decided to intentionally work with his dad so they can talk while they work. He’ll be graduating in a few years, and he wants to get his dad’s input on hard things he can do now to prepare for the future. He has the same plan for helping his mom in the kitchen.
Ask Noah and he’ll tell you that he’s more excited than he’s been in a long time. “Of course, it’s just a start,” he admits. “But it’s where I’m headed that matters. Recently I haven’t been headed anywhere! And even though sticking with my plan will be hard at times, it will all be worth it. That’s what doing hard things is all about, right?”
HELPING THOSE WHO STAND ALONE
For Serena, being a rebelutionary means redeeming some wasted years in terms of her sexual purity. She knows God has forgiven her, and now her passion is to help other girls—especially her fellow Latinas—avoid making the same mistakes she made. In her circles at school and work, she knows girls who really don’t want to give in to the cultural pressures in dress and relationships, but they don’t know how to stand alone.
“So many girls out there are hurt and confused,” Serena says. “Just like I was. I want to help launch a rebelution on this issue [of sexual purity].”
Serena has been going back and forth about launching a ministry on sexual purity for almost a month, and a lot of the details are still unclear to her. But she realizes that it’s time to stop stalling and take the first step. If God has placed this holy ambition on her heart, He will help her accomplish it.
Here’s Serena’s five-step rebelutionary action plan:
1. Call Mrs. Lopez and schedule a meeting for coffee, ASAP. One person most responsible for helping Serena change her pattern of broken relationships was an older woman at her church. Mrs. Lopez met Serena at a music outreach event and had prayed and cried with her, sharing her own story of sin and redemption and connecting Serena with some new Christian friends. Now Serena wants to ask Mrs. Lopez to mentor her as she embarks on her rebelutionary adventure.
2. Set up a blog and start writing articles. Eventually Serena wants to have a full website with stories, articles, discussion forums, and a pledge for purity. Maybe she’ll even have a print magazine. But for now the best way to get started is with a blog. She can link to other websites in the sidebar and create an e-mail address so girls can contact her. The first articles will be her story and the lessons she’s learned—soon she’ll have other girls’ stories to tell.
3. IM [instant message] Nikki and ask if she’ll help design a flier. Nikki is a homeschooled rebelutionary from Pennsylvania and is great at graphic design. Serena has never met her in person, but they started messaging each other during a discussion about sexual purity on TheRebelution.com and have kept in touch. She knows Nikki will be glad to design a flier with a message from Serena and a link to her blog.
4. Ask Sarah to help me spread the word at school. Sarah is Serena’s best friend and a total people person. We’re told that friendly and bubbly don’t begin to do her justice. Serena, on the other hand, is more reserved. The idea of handing out fliers scares her a bit—okay, more than a bit. If Sarah is with her, Serena will feel more confident—and she won’t be able to chicken out.
5. Find out what it takes to start a nonprofit organization. Serena has heard that it’s a bit of a process to become a government-recognized nonprofit, so she’s going to do some research and find out what is involved. She won’t need to be an “official” organization right away, but she’s in this for the long haul and doesn’t want to limit what God might do through her.
Serena has a holy ambition, and like most holy ambitions, it doesn’t come with all the details figured out. “I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen,” Serena says. “But I do know that nothing will happen until I trust God enough to take that first step.”
RETHINKING COMPANIONSHIP
For fourteen-year-old Brandon, phase one of his rebelution is to completely reevaluate who he hangs out with. He was convicted when he read Proverbs 13:20 about walking “with the wise” or being the “companion of fools.” He realizes that if he wants to rebel against low expectations and live radically for Christ, he is going to need friends who will encourage him to fight for that higher standard. He doesn’t have that now.
In fact, Brandon has noticed that even his friends who say they’re Christians don’t really live like it. Even worse, lately he’s caught himself being influenced by the jokes they tell and the language they use. He knows he can’t talk like that at home, but he’s started doing it at school in an effort to fit in. It has worked—his friends all laugh and slap him on the back—but fitting in isn’t what Brandon wants anymore.
“Jesus said that it doesn’t matter if you have the admiration of the world if you lose your soul,” Brandon says slowly. “Do I want to please Jesus or my friends?”
Brandon has another insight: his companions aren’t limited to people. “If foolish human companions harm you, aren’t foolish movies or comic books just as bad?” he asks. “I’d never thought of them as ‘friends’ until now, but that’s really what they are.”
“Sometimes I spend more time with those companions than with my human friends,” he admits. “And actually they’re all pretty depressing.”
Here’s Brandon’s five-step rebelutionary action plan:
1. Talk to Dad and Mom about everything. This one is the hardest thing on Brandon’s list. That’s why he put it first. He wants his parents to know what’s been going on at school and what God has been doing in his heart. He knows that if he really wants to change, he will need their support and prayers.
2. Talk to Jake and Logan at school tomorrow. Jake and Logan are Brandon’s best friends at school—and more than anything, he wants them to join him in rebelling against low expectations. He realizes that the first step in changing his friends is to change what kind of friend he is—and he plans to tell Jake and Logan about the Rebelution and invite them to read Do Hard Things.
3. Invite Drew and Brady over this weekend. Brandon knows that besides trying to be a wise companion to his old friends at school, he also needs to surround himself with new companions who will help him keep on the right path. Drew and Brady are a year or two older than he is, but they’re leaders in his youth group and introduced him to the Rebelution. They said they’d love for him to get more involved at church, and Brandon plans to take them up on it.
4. Cut back on Internet use, except for projects. This step is about those nonhuman companions: online videos, Manga, and games. Brandon recognizes that technology can be a tool or a toy depending on how you use it—but lately he’s been using it to let in a lot of “foolish friends,” and it’s time to cut back. Plus, he says, being a rebelutionary will take all the extra time he can get. “And that’s a good thing!” He laughs.
5. Spend at least thirty minutes reading my Bible every day. Brandon understands that more important than finding good companions is getting to know the Ultimate Companion—and there’s no better way to do that than by reading His Word. Brandon doesn’t know if he’ll always be able to fit it in before school, but he’s resolved to make it top priority by giving it the first free time he has each day. And cutting back on Internet time should help.
Brandon doesn’t know what phase two of his rebelution will be for him yet, but he’s confident that God will honor him if he remains humble.
“I’m the first rebelutionary I know of at my school,” Brandon says, “but I know there are other teens who are looking for something more. Maybe I can help show them what that is.”
THE STORY WAITING TO BE TOLD
Think about the rebelutionary path you believe God is calling you to take. As you read these three profiles, did any practical “first steps” pop into your mind? We noticed some recurring wisdom that Noah, Serena, and Brandon all applied to their own goals. For example,
• They identified what they needed to get honest about and to whom.
• They decided what negative actions or patterns needed to end.
• They recognized which people could best help them get from point A to point B and made a plan to get connected.
• They figured out one or two key action steps that, once taken, would make it a lot tougher for them to chicken out and turn back—and they decided when and how they would take the steps.
• They acknowledged that they couldn’t succeed without God’s help, so they made a practical plan to stay close to Him.
• They expected—and were already excited about—success!
People ask us where the Rebelution will be in ten years. We tell them we don’t know the details—it’s an impossible question to answer. But if enough teens follow the examples of Noah, Serena, and Brandon—and the scores of other rebelutionaries you’ve met in this book—we have no doubt that the message and impact of the Rebelution will only continue to spread and grow. Young people like you are only beginning to write the stories of their lives, carefully putting into action the vision from the mountaintop.
Someday, God willing, millions will hear and be inspired by the story that is waiting to be told. And that story is yours.
What is your five-step rebelutionary action plan to get started? Take a few minutes to write it down. Your words will be the record of your new beginning. Then join us and countless other young people on this adventure.
Yes, it will be hard. But we’re rebelutionaries.
We do hard things.