rebelling against low expectations
What are your goals for 2018? With the new year just begun—and a new semester starting soon—most of us have some sort of goal in mind. Maybe you plan to read a certain number of books. Maybe you want to start running, biking, or working out. Maybe you’re just looking forward to starting school again refreshed and rested. But what are your goals in relation to God’s word? As Christian teens, our...
I graduated a few weeks ago, in the middle of a thunderstorm. We could see it as we stood in the megachurch lobby waiting to walk down the aisle. The floor-to-ceiling windows showed us a gray sky and pouring rain, and you could hear the muffled crash of thunder. Most of the other graduates were disappointed in the weather… but I was delighted. We’d been in a drought here, and we...
Sometimes, we think we know everything. As Christian teenagers, we are called to – and, by God’s grace, capable of – so much more than what our culture expects of us. Whether it’s “big” things or “little” things, we’re striving to do our best and to glorify God. But when you’re actively fighting those expectations, it’s easy to make them your benchmark – if we...
The first time I heard about The Rebelution was in 2009, at a hotel in Washington, D.C. Alex and Brett Harris were speaking in the hotel’s main ballroom. They talked about low expectations, doing hard things, and Alex’s ability to recite supercalifragilisticexpialidocious backwards in Japanese. But what exactly was this event? Why were three hundred kids and teenagers sitting in a hotel...
I’ve been a teen four or five years now. I think I’ve learned a good bit about teenagerhood (you do, when you’re living it). But there’s one aspect in particular that’s been on my mind the past few months. Things change so much. It’s the very nature of this season we inhabit, like creatures always just a little displaced. We’re like cars on the highway. We rush on, caught in a constant process of...
My memorization journey really began in 2009, when I signed up for the National Bible Bee competition. That first year, I probably didn’t memorize more than a hundred verses — and my motivation was definitely no higher than the $25,000 Primary division prize. But by God’s grace, over the past eight years I’ve grown so much — both in faith and in memorization ability...
What is the largest number of verses you can imagine memorizing in three months? Thirty? Fifty? One hundred? For contestants in the National Bible Bee competition this fall, that number could be as high as almost nine hundred. What is the National Bible Bee? The Bible Bee is a nationwide competition that begins in June, as participants across the country study a book or passage of the Bible and...
I hate cliques. I hate them so much. I hate them even more because I’ve been a part of them. It’s galling to realize you’re in one of the groups you’ve always secretly condemned – the group that stands off by itself, silently discouraging all contact. It’s not like you have to be best friends with everybody, but it’s just so incredibly easy to gravitate to the people you know, with whom you’re...
rebelling against low expectations
