Our friend Alex Chediak, an Associate Professor at California Baptist University, has written a great book called Thriving at College. Here is the foreword we wrote:

College can be a wonderful and a dangerous place. We’ve seen some of our peers flourish and find their identity at school and we’ve seen others completely lose their way—or even self-destruct. Is the college experience inherently bipolar, good for some and unavoidably bad for others? Or is there another possibility, that each outcome is a path we can choose to take? In this terrific book former college student and current college professor Alex Chediak says the answer to that last question is “Yes!”—and we wholeheartedly agree.

For most high school graduates today, going to college is the default. As a result, a lot of teens end up drifting from high school into college, without any clear plan in mind. Maybe you are going to make your parents happy, or to get away from somewhere or someone, or maybe college just sounds like a fun new experience. Whatever your motivation, entering college without a sense of purpose is dangerous.

Why? Because for most young adults, college provides at once more freedom and more responsibility than they’ve ever had before. Whether you choose to focus on the freedom or the responsibilities of college will determine whether you thrive—or just survive. At college there are no parents to make you read your Bible, do your homework, get sleep, eat well, or do laundry. At college—even at Christian universities—there are “friends” willing to support whatever lifestyle you choose to engage in: from bookworm to party animal.

So college is both a crisis and an opportunity. A crisis, because while embracing the freedom of campus life can lead to temporary fun, the end result can be a lifetime of regret. An opportunity, because embracing the responsibility of college can result in incredible intellectual, spiritual, social, emotional, and physical growth.

The student who thrives at college—the student who glorifies God with his or her college years—is the one who sees it as a great opportunity that requires great responsibility. Alex Chediak understands this better than most, with the experience and heart to help students reach their full God-given potential. Thriving at College will help you navigate the common pitfalls relating to faith, relationships, academics, and extracurricular activities.

There is no better guide to college than this.

If you are currently in college or heading in that direction, this book should be part of your “college survival kit.” On April 14th, AlexChediak.com is hosting a “book bomb”—which gives you the chance to grab a copy and spread the word!

Join the discussion by answering the following questions:

• Have you seen friends “thrive” or “lose their way” at college? Why is that?
• If you are planning to go to college, is it the default or part of a plan?
• If you are in college, is your focus on freedom or responsibility?

I was reading an article on “mental athletes” by The New York Times. It was a fascinating subject, however, there was one section in particular that caught my attention and seemed worth passing along.

In the Secrets of a Mind-Gamer (an article with a very off-putting and tawdry introduction which only makes sense if you read the entire thing) Joshua Foer explores his journey from journalistic curiosity to competing for the United States Memory Championship. As he relates the steps he took, he tells of when he seemingly hit the plateau of his memorizing potential, and how he got past it:

Cooke kept me on a strict training regimen. Each morning, after drinking coffee but before reading the newspaper or showering or getting dressed, I sat at my desk for 10 to 15 minutes to work through a poem or memorize the names in an old yearbook. Rather than take a magazine or book along with me on the subway, I would whip out a page of random numbers or a deck of playing cards and try to commit it to memory. Strolls around the neighborhood became an excuse to memorize license plates. I began to pay a creepy amount of attention to name tags. I memorized my shopping lists. Whenever someone gave me a phone number, I installed it in a special memory palace.

Over the next several months, while I built a veritable metropolis of memory palaces and stocked them with strange and colorful images, Ericsson kept tabs on my development. When I got stuck, I would call him for advice, and he would inevitably send me scurrying for some journal article that he promised would help me understand my shortcomings. At one point, not long after I started training, my memory stopped improving. No matter how much I practiced, I couldn’t memorize playing cards any faster than 1 every 10 seconds. I was stuck in a rut, and I couldn’t figure out why. “My card times have hit a plateau,” I lamented.

“I would recommend you check out the literature on speed typing,” he replied.

When people first learn to use a keyboard, they improve very quickly from sloppy single-finger pecking to careful two-handed typing, until eventually the fingers move effortlessly and the whole process becomes unconscious. At this point, most people’s typing skills stop progressing. They reach a plateau. If you think about it, it’s strange. We’ve always been told that practice makes perfect, and yet many people sit behind a keyboard for hours a day. So why don’t they just keeping getting better and better?

In the 1960s, the psychologists Paul Fitts and Michael Posner tried to answer this question by describing the three stages of acquiring a new skill. During the first phase, known as the cognitive phase, we intellectualize the task and discover new strategies to accomplish it more proficiently. During the second, the associative phase, we concentrate less, making fewer major errors, and become more efficient. Finally we reach what Fitts and Posner called the autonomous phase, when we’re as good as we need to be at the task and we basically run on autopilot. Most of the time that’s a good thing. The less we have to focus on the repetitive tasks of everyday life, the more we can concentrate on the stuff that really matters. You can actually see this phase shift take place in f.M.R.I.’s of subjects as they learn new tasks: the parts of the brain involved in conscious reasoning become less active, and other parts of the brain take over. You could call it the O.K. plateau.

Psychologists used to think that O.K. plateaus marked the upper bounds of innate ability. In his 1869 book “Hereditary Genius,” Sir Francis Galton argued that a person could improve at mental and physical activities until he hit a wall, which “he cannot by any education or exertion overpass.” In other words, the best we can do is simply the best we can do. But Ericsson and his colleagues have found over and over again that with the right kind of effort, that’s rarely the case. They believe that Galton’s wall often has much less to do with our innate limits than with what we consider an acceptable level of performance. They’ve found that top achievers typically follow the same general pattern. They develop strategies for keeping out of the autonomous stage by doing three things: focusing on their technique, staying goal-oriented and getting immediate feedback on their performance.

Amateur musicians, for example, tend to spend their practice time playing music, whereas pros tend to work through tedious exercises or focus on difficult parts of pieces. Similarly, the best ice skaters spend more of their practice time trying jumps that they land less often, while lesser skaters work more on jumps they’ve already mastered. In other words, regular practice simply isn’t enough. For all of our griping over our failing memories — the misplaced keys, the forgotten name, the factoid stuck on the tip of the tongue — our biggest failing may be that we forget how rarely we forget. To improve, we have to be constantly pushing ourselves beyond where we think our limits lie and then pay attention to how and why we fail. That’s what I needed to do if I was going to improve my memory.

With typing, it’s relatively easy to get past the O.K. plateau. Psychologists have discovered that the most efficient method is to force yourself to type 10 to 20 percent faster than your comfort pace and to allow yourself to make mistakes. Only by watching yourself mistype at that faster speed can you figure out the obstacles that are slowing you down and overcome them. Ericsson suggested that I try the same thing with cards. He told me to find a metronome and to try to memorize a card every time it clicked. Once I figured out my limits, he instructed me to set the metronome 10 to 20 percent faster and keep trying at the quicker pace until I stopped making mistakes. Whenever I came across a card that was particularly troublesome, I was supposed to make a note of it and see if I could figure out why it was giving me cognitive hiccups. The technique worked, and within a couple days I was off the O.K. plateau, and my card times began falling again at a steady clip. Before long, I was committing entire decks to memory in just a few minutes.

I think this is fascinating and challenging. To be honest, it is something I have wondered about in passing but never took the time to actually investigate.

In some ways, I have to confess I regret learning about it because I’ve lost an excuse I like to use. Sometimes when I do things and reach my plateau I simply stop, because I’m a perfectionist, and if I don’t compare with those who are really good then I don’t want to do it at all. There are other things I’m better at, I reason, and so I excuse myself by rationalizing that it’s a waste of time to dwell on something I can’t get any better at. Now I’ve lost my excuse.

But on the other hand, this thought thrills me. The best you think you can do, is not the best you can do. With the correct approach, with feedback, and diligence in repeatedly practicing the hard parts and the areas in which we are the most likely to fail, we can go far beyond what initially appears the limits of our potential.

Join in by answering any or all of the following questions:

• Have you experienced the “O.K. Plateau” in your own life?
• If so, did you respond by coasting or by pushing through?
• What are some areas in your life where you could apply these principles?

+ Join the Conversation +

Several people had recommended this sermon to us, but we never got around to listening to it until it was assigned as part of Investigative Journalism class at Patrick Henry College. We were discussing the role of Christian journalists, but the message is for all Christians — and seems especially relevant to rebelutionaries.

Pastor Tim Keller unpacks Jeremiah 29:4-7 to argue for a uniquely Christian approach to citizenship, one that avoids assimilation and tribalism in favor of selfless service. Keller defines “assimilation” as using the city for your personal benefit and “tribalism” as using the city for the benefit of your group. Both approaches fall short of God’s command in Jeremiah, where the Israelites are instructed to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”

LISTEN TO KELLER’S MESSAGE - 38 MIN. LONG

Keller argues that Christians should be the very best citizens because we enter society with an intact identity in God. We can approach the earthly city with hearts ready to serve because we already have a secure inheritance in the heavenly one. We need very little, but we have much to give. And God’s kingdom comes when believers demonstrate their love for God by the way they love other people.

If this is true, then many Christians (and rebelutionaries) are taking the wrong approach to leading the nation and shaping the culture. The Church’s rise to prominence in the Roman Empire resulted not from the pursuit of power, but from an unexplainable, self-sacrificing love for others (listen to the sermon to hear this story). Their influence arose from the quality and consistency of their service, not the extent of their ambition or the strength of their network.

SERIOUSLY, YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THE MESSAGE

This concepts are vital for rebelutionaries because they touch at the heart of why we do hard things, why we rebel against low expectations, and why we pursue character, competence, and collaboration. Is it for personal gain or glory? No. Is it to ensure “our team” wins the culture war? No. We do it so others might see our love and come to know the Source of that love. We do it so others might see our good works and give glory to our Father in Heaven (Matt. 5:16)

That’s it for our thoughts. Listen to the message (it’s well-worth 40 minutes of your time). Then, join the conversation by answering the following questions:

• What has most characterized your approach to “changing the world” — assimilation (serving yourself), tribalism (serving your group), or selfless love (serving the city)?
• How do you think assimilation and tribalism influence the Church’s effectiveness? Have these approaches ever worked in the past?
• How should a renewed emphasis on service change your tactics (or the tactics of Christianity as a whole)?

+ Join the Conversation +

Throughout history more lives have been changed through books than by any other means. Books are important. Reading is important. Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers, wrote: “The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.”

If that’s true then our generation is largely brainless. We don’t read — and that’s especially true of boys. The following article, published in The Wall Street Journal, charts a forward course that could save our generation, or at least help us raise the next generation of leaders/readers. Take a look, and then get off the computer.

When I was a young boy, America’s elite schools and universities were almost entirely reserved for males. That seems incredible now, in an era when headlines suggest that boys are largely unfit for the classroom. In particular, they can’t read.

According to a recent report from the Center on Education Policy, for example, substantially more boys than girls score below the proficiency level on the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. This disparity goes back to 1992, and in some states the percentage of boys proficient in reading is now more than ten points below that of girls. The male-female reading gap is found in every socio-economic and ethnic category, including the children of white, college-educated parents.

The good news is that influential people have noticed this problem. The bad news is that many of them have perfectly awful ideas for solving it.

Everyone agrees that if boys don’t read well, it’s because they don’t read enough. But why don’t they read? A considerable number of teachers and librarians believe that boys are simply bored by the “stuffy” literature they encounter in school. According to a revealing Associated Press story in July these experts insist that we must “meet them where they are”—that is, pander to boys’ untutored tastes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many of you have emailed us to ask about locations for the 2011 conference tour. Well, the wait is over! Below is the official (tentative) list of dates and locations:

Orlando, FL — June 18, 2011

Philadelphia Williamsport, PA — June 25, 2011

San Diego, CA — July 9, 2011

Portland, OR — July 30, 2011

Kansas City, KS — August 6, 2011

Indianapolis, IN — August 27, 2011

Baton Rouge, LA — September 17, 2011

We think the 2011 conferences will be amazing. We’re excited to return to two cities where we had incredible conferences in past years, and we’re excited to bring the tour to five new cities — including Orlando and Williamsport Central PA!

Of course, all of these dates and cities are subject to change. We’re hard at work to nail down details, sign contracts with facilities, and recruit local teams. If you’d like to help out, please email us at info [at] therebelution [dot] com.

Keep checking back over the next several weeks for confirmed dates and locations, as well as registration. We’ll update the website as soon as we have those details.

2011 and Beyond

Since the first conference in 2006, over 50,000 teens, parents, and youth workers have gathered to be inspired by a message and a movement that is so much bigger than any of us. This year marks our fifth annual tour — possibly the last.

This is not to say that the Rebelution is coming to an end. Doing conferences has been an incredible privilege for both of us. We’ve been able to work with rebelutionaries across the country, spread the “do hard things” message to thousands of our peers, and see God change hundreds and hundreds of lives.

But we always knew that the day would come when God would call us to step into new seasons and new challenges — continuing to “do hard things” and live out the message of the Rebelution by building on the foundation we laid in the teen years.

But the Rebelution isn’t over. At each of the conferences this year, we’re going take some time to talk about the future, for us and you. Whether you’re entering the teen years or leaving them behind, we hope you’ll join us as we strategize about the future of the movement — and the future of our generation.

Hope to see you there!

Last month we asked all of you to join us in prioritizing the life of the mind through reading. Over the last few weeks over two hundred of you shared your favorite books of 2010 and to-read lists for 2011. If you didn’t, it’s not too late!

In this post, we want to share some excerpts of a book we’re reading — Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of Christ by John Piper. In the third chapter, “Reading as Thinking,” Piper defines thinking as “the activity of the mind in reading and understanding what others have written” — and especially, the Bible.

Of course, this is not a conventional (or comprehensive) definition of thinking, but it is a helpful one. In our experience, our best ideas have not come during long periods of reflection, but rather from engaging with the ideas of others (most often through reading). Not surprisingly, the books that do this best aren’t the easiest books to read — which means that deep thinking requires doing hard things.

Think Hard Things

As a rebelutionary, you are already committed to doing hard things — going outside your comfort zone, exceeding expectations, and doing what is right. But as rebelutionaries, we can’t do the right hard things if we aren’t willing to first think hard things — because what we think has a big effect on everything else we do.

Piper says that when we are confronted with a book with language, logic, or ideas that stretch our minds, we have two choices: “either we give up quickly or we think harder.” This is where reading and doing hard things come together:

That is mainly what I have in mind by thinking — working hard with our minds to figure out meaning from texts. Then, of course, we go on from there to think how that meaning relates to other meanings from other texts and from experiences in life. On and on the mind goes, until we build a coherent view of the world so that we can live a life that is rooted in a true understanding of God’s Word and its application to the world.

Glorifying God, applying His truth, and being effective in His service, all of those things require deep and cultivated thinking — and reading helps get us there. Doing any old “hard” thing, isn’t our goal as rebelutionaries. We need true understanding to do the right hard things, and that requires being willing to read hard things.

Read Hard Things

We once met a youth pastor in his late twenties who told us that Do Hard Things was the first book he’d read since college. Fortunately, it inspired him to keep on reading! Unfortunately, his post-school reading habits are not that unusual.

The truth is, most young adults today don’t read much outside of school. And when they do, it’s not the kind that inspires deep thinking. Walk through the teen section at your local Barnes and Noble and you’ll find lots of “gossipy girls” and vampire romances — but hardly any non-fiction and no challenging ideas.

But just like in any other area of our lives, growth (and strength and skill) will only come with hard work. As Piper writes, “This is basic to all growing up. Part of maturity is the principle of deferred gratification. If you cannot embrace the pain of learning but must have instant gratification, you forfeit the greatest rewards in life.”

Adolescent Understanding?

Piper is right, whether it is working out, exercising leadership, or thinking — the principle of “delayed gratification” is central to the Rebelution. We loved this:

There comes a point when we choose to be intentional about our thinking, so that we grow in what we see and understand. If we don’t choose to think harder, we settle for an adolescent level of understanding the rest of our lives.

That “intentionality” is exactly what rebelutionaries must be known for. In the same way that refusing to do hard things leaves us stuck at adolescent ability, so refusing to think hard things leaves us stuck at adolescent understanding.

Our commitment to doing hard things must extend to our intellectual life — it’s how we glorify God with our mind and make our “doing” more effective. Unfortunately, it’s an area that many Christians — and even rebelutionaries — can neglect.

So will we be intentional about reading, and reading deeper — thinking, and thinking harder? It goes against nearly everything our culture expects of our wired generation. But we’re rebelutionaries. We think hard things.

Greetings, rebelutionaries! You have probably noticed that new posts have been an endangered species around here in the recent months. Some of that is busyness. Some of that is planning and projects — for next year and the years ahead. But a lot of it is the simple fact that we haven’t had much to write about.

Oh, there are still lots of stories of rebelutionaries making a difference. This week we received an email about a group of teens in Tinley Park, IL, who adopted the “Do Hard Things” challenge and raised thousands of dollars for an orphanage and thousands more for a mini-home makeover for an 11-year-old cancer survivor!

The Insight Problem

No, when we say we have not had much to write about, we are not talking about a lack of information, we are talking about a lack of insight. When we write, we want to share something we believe is uniquely helpful — something we hope will equip you and make you more effective in doing hard things for the glory of God.

The problem is that we are not that wise! We like to joke that we used up all our life experience writing Do Hard Things and Start Here — and that is partly true! Those books are our message to our generation, the best we’ve been able to put it. And we’re not lying when we say that we poured all our good ideas into them.

That doesn’t mean we think there’s nothing left that’s worth saying. Not at all! But the Rebelution was birthed out of a summer of intense reading (and thinking). Our best writing has come when we have been pondering over the great ideas of older and wiser men and women. And there has been less time for that this past year.

Replenishing the Well

One of our favorite quotes is by Charles Spurgeon on reading: “The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves he has no brains of his own.”

That’s not just true for people who have never authored a book, published a paper, or delivered a sermon, that’s true for everyone. The well of insight dries up quickly when it is not replenished by life experience, by reading, and by the Word.

As we approach the end of the semester and enter the Christmas season, we are hoping to replenish the well by reading — and one of the books we’re reading is Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God by John Piper. Just a few chapters in, there are already a host of direct applications for rebelutionaries.

Series Roadmap

This next month, we’ll be posting our thoughts in response to John Piper’s insights (spoiler: a lot of it is about reading), and challenging you to join us in prioritizing the life of the mind this holiday season — and for the rest of your life.

For now, join the conversation by answering any or all of the following questions:

• What books (and great ideas) have you pondered over this past year? How about in Scripture? What insights did you take away from that reading?
• When do you find you have the most time to read? What tends to be the biggest reason why you don’t read (great books) more?
• What is on your reading list this Christmas season? For next year?

+ Join the Conversation +

Attention all aspiring filmmakers! We want to bring your attention to the sixth annual San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. This event, running this whole weekend, will bring together Christian filmmakers from around the globe.

Last year the Best of Festival, $101,000 cash award went to long-time rebelutionary and friend John Moore for his feature film The Widow’s Might.

This year our brother Isaac is continuing the Harris family tradition of live-blogging the festival on his blog — along with his (and our) good friend Christian Edmonds.

If you like filmmaking (or just great family films), don’t miss this coverage!

+ Follow the Live Blog +

What an amazing conference tour we had this summer. A total of 7 conferences, 9,400 attendees, and nearly 1,000 professions of faith. Soli Deo gloria!

This year was also a year of joyful and tearful firsts. It was our first time hosting conferences outside the United States (in Surrey, BC and Edmonton, AB), our first time presenting our dad’s gospel session, our first time having our brother Josh speak on the tour (in Atlanta, Nashville, and DC) — and our first time without our incredible mother to cheer us on. But the overwhelming emotion is joy.

God is good. God is sovereign. God is faithful.

We could share dozens of stories of how He reminded us of those truths, but what we really want is to hear from you. Did you attend a Rebelution conference this year? How did it impact you? Leave a comment and share your story.

Whether you attended or not, click through for a photo recap of the 2010 tour.

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