On Saturday, over 2,200 teens, parents, and youth workers gathered at Rolling Hills Community Church for the second stop of the Do Hard Things Tour. They came from California, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, even Alaska, to be challenged to do hard things for the glory of God. 127 stood for salvation.

Photo Credit: Jordan Schaefer

Do Hard Things is the manifesto of the movement, our attempt to spread the ideas in the most compelling and accessible way possible. Few things make us happier than getting it in the hands of people who will read it and help us spread the word. By God’s grace, that continues to happen.

Photo Credit: Jordan Schaefer

“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

+ Ephesians 3:20-21 +

Photo Credit: Jordan Schaefer

TanyaBeth sends in this shot of Do Hard Things with the greatest book ever written. Send your creative book photos to book [at] therebelution.com.

Justin and Cassie Davito collaborated on this action shot. There must be some mysterious connection between Do Hard Things and basketball.

The sibling team of Krista Gora and Mike Vance sent in this beautiful picture. Wait until you see their other ones in a future post. Very cool.

Erik Brown on pull-up number twenty. You’re the man, Erik!

TanyaBeth demonstrates that even dogs can learn to do hard things.

That’s all for this post. More to come! Meanwhile, please be praying for us and all the attendees at tomorrow’s Portland conference. Soli deo gloria!

Here’s an awesome shot from reader Kole and his four brothers. Send us your interesting, funny, or creative Do Hard Things photos — book [at] therebelution.com.

Brian Jones sends this incredible black and white photo of the book cover.

Hillary sends in this adorable picture of her brother John. Start ‘em young!

From Katrina and Lillian Martin — the Vikings doing hard things! Send us your interesting, funny, or creative Do Hard Things photos: book [at] therebelution.com

A few weeks back WorldNetDaily.com invited Alex and me to write a short column about The Rebelution and what God is doing in our generation. It was published just yesterday and we wanted to share it with you. Each of you is a part of this incredible story that God is unfolding before our eyes. Praise the Lord that He uses young people who are willing to do hard things through Jesus!

A teenage ‘rebelution’

by ALEX & BRETT HARRIS

A GROWING MOVEMENT of young people around the world is choosing to rebel against the low expectations of today’s culture and “do hard things” for the glory of God. And for some reason, God has seen fit for two teenage twin brothers from Oregon to help lead the charge.

We weren’t looking to launch a movement back in August of 2005. In fact, all we did was start a blog. Sixteen million hits later, this idea of teens “rebelling against rebellion” has sparked a national conference tour and now a book, “Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations,” which reached No. 5 on Amazon.com – even before its April 15 release.

To the average person, the success of this message is more than unlikely; it is inexplicable. Teens don’t want to be challenged. They don’t want to do hard things. Yet, as we’ve traveled around the world we’ve found that God is doing something big in the hearts and minds of our generation. There is a growing restlessness and a desire for something more than the piddling offerings of popular culture. Young people today want more. They want to be challenged.

This past Sunday, Pastor John Piper kicked off a five-part series on Bethlehem Baptist Church’s vision for a rising generation of young people — a series our father, Gregg Harris, will wrap up on May 18th there in Minneapolis.

The passage of Scripture that he used was 1 Timothy 4:12 — the theme verse of the Rebelution. In fact, the message of “rebellion against low expectations” and “do hard things” features prominently throughout. But that’s not why we share it.

The reason we bring this message to your attention is because it does one of the best jobs we’ve ever seen (and far better than we could do ourselves) of laying out the call of 1 Timothy 4:12 and a biblical portrait of the perils and potential of youth.

This message is a must read (or watch, or listen to) sermon for rebelutionary teens, parents, and youth workers. Don’t miss out on the benefit. Get a taste below.

Let No One Despise You for Your Youth
A Vision for the Next Generation

Please turn with me to 1 Timothy 4:12. This is one of Paul’s words to the younger Timothy who needed to be reminded that his expectation for what he could be were too low. I will begin with this verse, make a few comments about it and then step back and try to get the bigger biblical picture. Paul says, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

Four brief observations:

1. Youth Can Be Despised

Youth are often looked down on because of attitudes and behaviors that are annoying or immature. Some of the things people often associate with youth are disrespect, rebellion, self-absorption, cliquishness, conformity to peer pressure, indifference to serious issues, and a fixation on fun as the only thing that satisfies. If these are pronounced, people can even despise youth. Paul implies that in saying, “Let no one despise your youth.”

2. Youth Should Not Be Indifferent to What Adults Think

Paul is telling Timothy to do what he can as a young man to keep that despising from happening. Don’t be indifferent to what older people think. Care about it. Take steps to win their approval. “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

3. Youth Should Not See Adult Opinions As Supreme

But the way he tells Timothy to overcome being despised is not to adjust to their attitudes. He does not say, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but find out what they want and act that way.” Peaceful relationships between older and younger is not of supreme value. Adaptation to older people is not the point. He does not absolutize adult expectations. He does something very different.

4. Youth Should Look to Ultimately God’s Standards

Paul says, The way I want youth to pursue not being despised is look to God’s standards of love and faith and purity. In that way, even young people can become examples to older people. “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

The point is not: Find out what older people want and give it to them so they don’t despise you. The point is: Find out what kind of words and conduct God wants and do that. He gives love and faith and purity as examples of what we should do in our words and conduct. Let all your words and actions come from faith in Christ. Let them be loving. And keep yourselves sexually pure.

Now that may make some adults despise you. If you stand up at school for the way of sexual abstinence before marriage, there will be adults that despise you. But you will be right, as well as the adults who really matter, and God himself will not despise you.

So Paul’s main point is that Timothy should not have low expectations of the impact of his life toward those who are older. He should look to God, believe in the gospel, do what God calls him to do, and in that way become an example to the rest… Now step back with me to get a larger biblical picture of the perils and possibilities of youth. Let’s move in order from original sin to a bold life of God-centered gospel-obedience beyond all low expectations.

+ Read It / Watch It / Listen to It +

This is just a quick reminder that Saturday, April 26th is the last day to qualify for Pre-Registration Prices for our Portland Conference on May 3rd, 2008. After Saturday prices will jump from $30 for teens and $20 for adults, to $35 for teens and $25 for adults. Talk to your parents and make your decision quickly.

More Information / Register Today / Spread The Word

This is just a quick reminder that Saturday, April 26th is the last day to qualify for Early Bird Registration Prices for our Minneapolis Conference on June 21st, 2008. After Saturday prices will jump from $25 for teens and $15 for adults, to $30 for teens and $20 for adults. Talk to your parents and make your decision quickly.

More Information / Register Today / Spread The Word

Alex and I are down in SoCal doing some television and radio interviews, but we received this email the other day and just had to share it with you. Allow it to inspire you — whatever your “holy ambition” may be. Pray that God would give you a vision to serve others and magnify His name in the world!

Hi, Alex and Brett. My name is Ron Hunt. I’m a pastor in San Jose and have been working with students for about 25 years now. I thought I’d encourage you today with another example of a group of students doing “hard things.” Our student ministry is called X-Force Student Ministries. They’ve done some pretty amazing things through the years.

One example is the African Water Project, a student-led campaign to provide safe, clean water to the people of sub-Saharan Africa. Last year, the day before World Water Day (March 22), they heard about the water crisis in Africa. Inspired by Zach Hunter’s challenge to “be the change,” they decided to take action. They founded African Water Project the next day.

Right away, they decided to conduct an H2O Challenge — choosing to drink only water for two weeks, setting aside the savings, and giving it to the African Water Project. On the day they began this Challenge, they announced their intentions to our congregation and challenged those in attendance to join them, along with other family members and friends.

Next, they decided to change the opening day event of their annual X-Tour (an amazing adventure tour we conduct each year). They would travel to Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth, to conduct a 15-mile walkathon to benefit AWP.

It was an amazing experience! Temps reached 121 degrees that day! They called it the Badwater for Good Water Walk, since it began in the Badwater Basin of Death Valley (the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere), and it was being conducted to bring good water to the people of Africa.

Together, the students were able to increase awareness of the African water crisis (through speaking engagements, media coverage, etc.), as well as raise enough funds to drill three new wells in Western Kenya, and repair seven more in Zambia! To commemorate World Water Day this year, and to celebrate the 1st anniversary of African Water Project, they sent funds to repair three more wells in Zambia.

This year, the students are preparing to conduct an event they’re calling the Give-Well Triathlon. It will be a three-sport endurance event around the Monterey Peninsula, here in California. They will be paddling sea kayaks for 3 miles, then riding their bikes around the entire Peninsula (about 17 miles), and finishing the last five miles on foot.

We hope to be able to raise even more money for new wells this year! The exciting thing is seeing how many other youth groups and individuals they’ve been able to inspire along the way! Breakaway Magazine just interviewed them a couple of weeks ago, too. We’re excited about what God is doing in our midst and consider ourselves a part of the rebelution!

You might want to check out some of what these students have been up to by visiting their website: www.AfricanWaterProject.org. Thanks for all you’re doing to inspire and challenge this generation! Let us know if there is some other way we can help. We’ll try to keep you informed about the plans we have for the future. Next year, we hope to be in Africa!

Visit their site and sign the guestbook!

Alex and I love our Abort73 shirts. More than that, we love what Abort73.com is accomplishing in the cause of life. So, when Abort73.com founder Michael Spielman asked us to let you guys know about their (incredible) sale on limited edition Abort73 shirts (only $7.50 per) we felt like we had to post about it.

For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with this fantastic ministry, here is their abbreviated purpose statement, taken from their website. Please take this opportunity to learn about the work these brothers and sisters in Christ are doing:

Abort73.com exists to cut through the skewed rhetoric of a broadly pro-choice culture by presenting young people with the conclusive evidence that abortion is a massive injustice, one which has and continues to systematically destroy the most innocent and helpless members of the human race.

As you browse through the shirts and realize how incredibly awesome they are, think about this: Why would you ever need to pay $20-$30 bucks for a shirt that promotes absolutely nothing (or else some secular brand) when you can be wearing super-amazing (high-quality) shirts that save babies’ lives (for half the price)?

Between our Abort73, Don’t Waste Your Life, and Do Hard Things t-shirts Alex and I just don’t have any room in our drawers for GAP or Hollister to make us walking billboards for their commercial empire. Of course, this isn’t a legalistic thing for us — it just makes way more sense to wear something we believe in.

THE SALE IS OVER / Shop All Abort73 Gear

We stumbled across this blog the other day and thought it was so cool we had to share it with you. We don’t know anything about the author except that [1] he’s a he (we think), [2] he’s fifteen, and [3] he’s a passionate Christian pursuing rocketry for the glory of God. What’s your passion? Do Hard Things.

DTH Rocket Endeavors started with one individual (me) who looked to the skies. Up in that big, blue expanse the Lord’s wonders were displayed, which put a fascination for it in me. I decided that I wanted to fly, and explore the vast firmament.

I began by building model rockets. The first ones I made were pretty bad: I made them out of duct tape mostly, they didn’t have a recovery device, and almost all of them were unstable and thus spun loop de loops in the sky when ignited.

It wasn’t until I checked out a book at the library called “The Handbook of Model Rocketry” by G. Harry Stine that my rockets began to improve. I learned about static and dynamic stability, how to put a recovery device into a rocket, how to build a good motor mount, about engine selection, and even advanced topics such as multistaging, cluster ignition, and altitude prediction. Then I learned about high-power rocketry (HPR), and that’s when I really decided to pursue rocketry.

Currently I am building large model rockets, which are defined as between 16 and 53 ounces in weight, using no more than 4.4 ounces of propellant, creating no more than 320 N-seconds of Total Impulse. The motor classification ranges from size E to G. Already I am taking on ambitious projects, like breaking the sound barrier, and building high-power rockets (although I can’t fly them until I am 18 and have a certification).

The first large model rocket that I built and flew was for my clay animation short film “The Curious Squirrel from Earth,” and in it I built a cockpit for a small clay squirrel. At the time it was the most successful rocket I had built, and the flight was observed and greatly cheered by several enthusiastic spectators. Here is a video of that amazing flight:

When I get older I plan to major in aerospace engineering, then start a real aerospace company, or work for the US Air Force, or something along those lines. But in the meantime, I’ll keep on learning on my own.

But whatever I do, it’s all about God. I strive to honor him in all I do. What better a place than the heavens to marvel at his magnificence? “…Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Visit his blog and leave an encouraging comment.