If you have no idea what all of this is about, check out our previous post (or just comment here asking to be filled in) — then join our treasure hunt to discover the what, when, and where of Twenty29.

Detectives, here is your next clue. This clue will lead to another clue, which will lead to another clue, etc. You are ultimately searching for a three-letter word — which are the first three letters of the answer to the very last clue.

When you have solved one step of the hunt, you will play around with the following link to uncover the next clue:

http://www.therebelution.com/twenty29/________.jpg

If your search leads you to a name (e.g. Ben) then insert the word “ben” into the blank space (i.e. ben.jpg). If your search leads you to a website (e.g. www.bmw.com) then insert “bmw” into the blank space (i.e bmw.jpg).

Your next erand is to find a person. He has a “manly” name. Once you discover his name you will try to meet him (i.e. find a picture of him). Once you meet him you will count down 1, 2, 3 — and then use horse sense and black-and-white thinking to discover what he is doing. That will be your last and final clue (and provide the three-letter word you are looking for).

The year 2009 has come and gone, though it seems only yesterday it was December of 2008 and I was empty; my heart was crying out for a greater purpose in life; and my head wasn’t even aware something was missing.

Was my cry answered? In the last twelve months have I seen an answer to my prayer? Yes, I have. It was an answer I never expected, an answer I never asked for. The answer to the unexplainable stirring in my soul, the answer I was waiting for, when I didn’t even realize I was waiting. This answer came, not in the form of a vision, or a revelation, but in the form of… a book. A simple book that I received for Christmas would turn my world upside down — if I would let it.

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations. An interesting title for a book. My parents actually want me to read this? But it seemed the most unique book in the stack I had received for Christmas, so I decided to read it first.

All of New Year’s morning was spent sitting on my bed methodically turning the pages of Do Hard Things. As I read I felt the stirring inside my soul, the stirring that I had never realized was there. It grew with the passing of each page, I realized something that had never before crossed my mind: I could be doing so much more.

“I was content inside my ‘good kid’ bubble.”

I was what people would call a “good kid.” At 14 and a half I obeyed my parents, could have an intelligible conversation with an adult, had never seen a PG-13 movie, was homeschooled, and had never had a relationship with a boy. I wasn’t rebellious, I was content inside my “good kid” bubble.

But while I didn’t do anything bad, did I really do anything excellent either? I was just “good.” As the pages turned and the stirring grew I realized that I had not been called to be “good,” Jesus Christ had not given his life on a cross to make me “good.” I had been called, my Master had summoned me, to excellence.

Toward the middle of the book I came across these words: “The complacency of fools destroys them. - Proverbs 1:32″ Over time, refusing to reach higher, try harder, and risk more robs us of the glorious purpose and wonderful future God has created us for. POP! My “good kid” bubble had just been done away with, the protection was gone, I was out in the open, and I would never be the same.

The Lord expected great things of me, and I was determined to deliver. As I continued flipping pages there was still a stirring in my soul. But it was no longer a searching sort of stirring, it was an excited stirring. “What can I do Lord? How can I further your Kingdom? What would you have me to do? What is my hard thing?” As I read the last page it hit me. Not like a tap on the shoulder, not like a slap on the cheek, but like a semi-truck running over me, I discovered my hard thing.

“With those words I gave my teenage life away…”

Memories came rushing back, painful memories. Twelve years old, reading a school assignment like a good kid. What I encountered scarred me forever. It was an explanation of abortion, the different methods, and dangers. Before I got through the first method tears streamed down my face, and sobs shook my twelve-year-old frame. Now, over two years later, the wounds that had been cause by seeing the words “baby” and “suction” in the same sentence were opened anew as the Lord revealed my hard thing to me. “No Lord, that can’t possibly be it,” my heart cried. “I can’t handle that, it’s too painful, it’s too hard!”

I couldn’t sleep that night, instead I lay awake with ideas and plans running through my head. I didn’t put them there, He did. All I could think of was trying to get them out. But finally surrender was necessary, or sleep would never come. “I trust you Lord, do as you will with me.” With those words I gave my teenage life away, and I would never get it back (and I don’t want it back).

Now, a year later I have endured struggles and rejoiced in victories in my fight for the unborn. I have started a nonprofit organization called Coins and Quilts 4 Life that is dedicated to being,”a voice for those who cannot speak and a love for those who have been given the chance.” To find out more about what this organization does, or to offer you support please visit our website.

So much has happened in a year, sometimes it is difficult to remember how things were before I read Do Hard Things. Nevertheless, when I do succeed in remembering I cannot help but praise my Saviour for rescuing me from the clutches of complacency, giving me a Holy Ambition to pursue, and opening my eyes to the vast potential that I hold as a young person…

Some questions for discussion:

• Reflect back on 2009. How are you a different person than you were a year ago? Do you see growth?
• What is one of the major lessons God has taught you the past year?
• How have you stepped outside your comfort zone this past year?

Dockers, the khaki brand of Levi Strauss & Co., is asking men to man up and wear the pants. In a world of advertising that constantly buffets men (and women) with distorted views of manhood and womanhood, the campaign seems like a breath of fresh air. Yes, they are trying to sell pants — but there are good ways to sell pants and bad ways to sell pants. This seems like a pretty good way.

In an interview with Brandweek, Jennifer Sey, Dockers’ vice president of global marketing, said that “sensitivity, chivalry, ambition and decisiveness” are the traits they wish to highlight. The new promos hopefully will “inspire today’s men to be men,” she told Brandweek. In today’s world that is pretty bold.

Check out the “man-ifesto” on their website and then come back here and share your thoughts. What do you think about Dockers’ vision of manhood? In what ways is it accurate? In what ways is it inaccurate? What really makes a man a man?

+ Join the Discussion / View the Man-ifesto +

Twenty-year-old Lila Rose and her pro-life student group, Live Action, have been hard at work the past three years uncovering the medical lies and manipulative counseling offered at Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain.

“They will do or say anything in order to sell more abortions to more women, whether it is covering up sexual abuse or lying to women about medical facts,” says Rose. “Our team has visited dozens of Planned Parenthood clinics undercover. Planned Parenthood, while claiming to support patient self-determination, operates with an ‘abortion-first mentality.’”

The video is the first in Live Action’s “Rosa Acuna Project,” a multi-state undercover audit documenting Planned Parenthood’s abortion counseling. Planned Parenthood has come under fire recently after Live Action’s investigations found them willing to conceal sexual abuse and accept donations targeted to abort African-Americans only. Videos of abuse cover-up prompted state investigations of Planned Parenthood and diversion of the abortion giant’s public subsidies.

Take the time to watch the video (above), share it with others, and support Lila and her team with your prayers as they continue their new media movement for life!

Learn More About Live Action / Help Spread the Word

One thing about being in college is that time can slip away from you. Homework builds up and the next thing you know five days have past and your family back home thinks you’re dead (we’re still alive mom!). This phenomenon also seems to negatively affect our blogging (and our sleeping).

For instance, a little less than a month ago we had the incredible privilege of speaking at the first ever National Bible Bee competition. We intended to post about it immediately, but then paper season hit. We wrote a lot — just not about the Bible Bee (and not for our blog). The good news is that by waiting we are now able to provide complete transcripts of our remarks (download links below), as well as announce that a DVD of the event is now available.

Sometime in the next week (i.e. before finals start) we will also be posting an inspiring message from Truman Falkner, a rebelutionary from Kansas City and 2nd Place Prize-Winner in the competition’s Senior category — so check back in!

• Alex’s Remarks (full transcript): Alex emphasizes the importance of Scripture memory — especially for young people — and shares a neat story about our dad’s devotion to Bible memory as a young man.
• Brett’s Remarks (full transcript): Brett challenges competitors not to separate head knowledge from heart reality — and shares the story of how he learned that lesson during high school.
• Official DVD from BibleBee.org: Contains our full remarks plus our lengthy Q&A session with the audience. Hopefully some of it is helpful!
• Audio from Family Life Today: We were blown away when Family Life Today chose to air our remarks! They had to cut out large chunks for the sake of time, so download the transcripts to see what you missed.

Check out the promo video for our new book, Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are. The video was shot and edited by our brother Isaac — with footage from our last conference in DC. The book hits March 16, 2010.

We can’t wait to share what we worked on all summer with all of you!

Whether it is making the cover of ESPN Magazine or garnering attention in local papers, rebelutionaries are helping make teens good news again. Joining those ranks are Kelsey Jurewicz and Liz Matthews from Pennsylvania — who raised $2,500 to provide clean water to third world countries. In the process they demonstrated care for others, effective collaboration, and perseverance in the face of discouragement. That breaks quite a few stereotypes about teens. Take that, low expectations!

Two teens toughing it out for a cause
By Brendan Purves • Wednesday, 11.18.09

Dinner for two. Two teens that want to do hard things.

Kelsey Jurewicz, 17, and Liz Matthews, 17, both of Harleysville, broke away from the typical teenage stereotypes and served up a fundraising spaghetti dinner at Zion Mennonite Church to raise money to help bring clean water to Third World villages.

“To know that people don’t have clean water is just horrifying,” Liz said about the two girl’s motivation to give back.

The two Souderton seniors held the Saturday, Nov. 14 dinner to raise money for World Vision’s Clean Water Fund, which uses the funding to provide 18-foot wells in villages that do not have clean water and can not afford to dig their own wells.

Liz and Kelsey held the dinner as part of their senior projects for Souderton High School, but said that they were originally inspired to run a charity event by the book “Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectation.”

Read the whole article >>

What do you think of Kelsey and Liz’s project? What is stopping you from doing something similar? Your cause might be clean water, or abortion, or slavery, or AIDS, or missions, or poverty, or Bible translation, or anything. Have you been involved in a fundraising project before? If so, share your story in the comment section.

Also, don’t miss an exciting opportunity this holiday season to help Josh Guthrie raise $24,000 to dig three wells in Africa. Other rebelutionaries and their families are giving away their Christmas money, organizing fundraisers, and spreading the word at church and at school. Check out the story here and consider getting involved.

+ Join the Conversation +

Photos courtesy of Montgomery Media • MontgomeryNews.com

We weren’t familiar with the Pocket Testament League until a few weeks ago when someone handed us a pocket-sized Gospel of John. In the back it included the challenging question: “What’s in your pocket? Keys? Wallet? Small change? Why not use your pocket to change someone’s life by filling it with the power of God’s Word?”

We discovered that the Pocket Testament League has been around for 116 years and has distributed over 100,000,000 Gospels around the world! All of this has been accomplished through the work of enthusiastic volunteer members. Moreover, all of this was started by a teenage girl from England named Helen Cadbury!

From their website: The ministry began in 1893 as the vision of a teenage girl named Helen Cadbury, daughter of the president of Cadbury Chocolates. She was so excited about sharing her faith that she organized a group of girls who sewed pockets onto their dresses to carry the small New Testaments her father had provided. The girls called their group “The Pocket Testament League.” Using small membership cards, they pledged to read a portion of the Bible every day, pray, and to share their faith as God provided opportunity.

God uses young people. Perhaps more accurately, God uses anyone who is willing to follow hard after Him — no matter their age. Helen (pictured above, far left) gave her life to Christ at the age of 12 and never looked back. She understood that the Great Commission applies just as much to 12-year-old Christians as it does to 45-year-old Christians — and millions have heard the Gospel because of it.

Our Savior Jesus Christ said, in Luke 10:2, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Let us pray that many of those laborers will be young people — and then let us be some of the first to go forth.

Some questions for discussion:

• Were you already familiar with the Pocket Testament League and/or Helen Cadbury? Have you eaten Cadbury Chocolate?
• At your stage in life, how should you be involved in the Great Commission? Have you excused yourself because of your age?
• When was the last time you shared the Gospel with someone?

Ever since we started this blog, and especially after Do Hard Things was released, we’ve gotten tons of emails from parents who want to know what our parents did to raise us kids. Our response is always that we’re far from perfect, but by God’s grace — and largely through decisions our father and mother made before we were born — we’ve seen God use our family in ways we never could have dreamed.

Our dad is our hero. Nobody has influenced us more than he has — both in what we’re doing today, as well as how we think about life. So we’ve encourage him (for a long time) to put his best ideas and insights into a new conference for parents (and teens). It’s called Raising Kids to Do Hard Things, but it’s not your average seminar — it’s more like a strategy session with our dad, who brings a boatload of biblical wisdom and 35 years of practical experience raising us and our siblings.

For any of you who have attended one of our Do Hard Things conferences, you know what a powerful and paradigm-shifting speaker our dad is. For all of you, his new conference is a terrific opportunity to find out for yourself. There currently ten conferences scheduled in ten cities across the United States — beginning in Los Angeles, CA in February and ending in Orlando, FL in December 2010.

• Los Angeles, CA • February 12-13, 2010 (visit the website)
• Dothan, AL • February 26-27, 2010 (visit the website)
• Portland, OR • March 19-20, 2010 (visit the website)
• Chicago, IL • April 23-24, 2010 (visit the website)
• St. Louis, MO • May 14-15, 2010 (visit the website)
• Denver, CO • September 17-18, 2010 (visit the website)
• Dallas, TX • October 8-9, 2010 (visit the website)
• Atlanta, GA • October 29-30, 2010 (visit the website)
• Washington D.C. • November 12-13, 2010 (visit the website)
• Orlando, FL • December 3-4, 2010 (visit the website)

You probably noticed that this “parenting” seminar is for both parents and teens. There’s a reason for that — and it’s very similar to the reason why we encourage parents to attend our “teen” conferences every year. As young people you probably live with your family. And being a rebelutionary gets a lot easier when you’re doing hard things with your parents on board. They can give you wise advice, provide needed resources (and snacks), drive you around, and help you keep going.

We’re excited about how God will use our dad’s new conference to get parents and teens excited about doing hard things together. Your job is to let your parents know about it — and encourage them to make it a family event! You’ll be glad you did.

+ Visit the Website / Register Online +