Happy 2009, Everyone!

If you have been following our blog, you know we have one more book to give away.  Due to everyone’s desire to focus on our families and on the holidays in December, we decided to save our last book for the new year.  If you are visiting our blog for the first time, we are referring to our Christmas Book Give-away.  We have given away at least one book a week for the month of December. To be considered for a free book, all you have to do is subscribe to our mailing list and make a comment on our blog.  Please keep checking back to see what book we will be giving away this month!  In the meantime, we hope you enjoy Dana’s review of the book below.

Have a wonderful week!

Beth

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“What you are holding in your hands right now is a challenging book for teens by teens who believe our generation is ready for a change. Ready for something that doesn’t promise a whole new life if you’ll just buy the right pair of jeans or use the right kind of deodorant. We believe our generation is ready to rethink what teens are capable of doing and becoming. And we’ve noticed that once wrong ideas are debunked and cleared away, our generation is quick to choose a better way, even if it’s also more difficult.”

Thus opens the book Do Hard Things: a Teenage Rebellion against Low Expectations, written by Alex and Brett Harris, forward by Chuck Norris. If those names sound familiar, it is because the authors are the 19 year old twin sons of well-known homeschool veterans Gregg and Sono Harris, and younger brothers of popular author Joshua Harris (I Kissed Dating Goodbye). This book lays the groundwork for understanding The Rebelution – a term coined by the twins (combining the words “revolution” and “rebellion”) to define a “rebellion against low expectations.”

Their insightful premise states that our culture has bought into the deception that teens are helpless, weak, irresponsible individuals, incapable of caring for anyone but themselves. They assert, as most fellow homeschoolers believe, that “the teen years are not a vacation from responsibility,” but instead “they are the training ground of future leaders who dare to be responsible now.” They exhort teens as well as adult Christians to be an effective countercultural force by truly living as salt and light in the world: by having Christ-like character, by a commitment to competency in their endeavors, and by their willingness to work in collaboration with other like-minded believers.

Not only do the authors feature accounts of several amazing teens who accomplished phenomenal, large-scale projects, but the Harris twins bring the concepts down to earth by also sharing stories of ‘normal’ teens who have chosen to stand apart from the stereotypical norms with smaller scale endeavors. This section includes a helpful, easy-to-understand list of principles that are recommended as a beneficial place to start self-examination before crafting one’s own action plan. Additionally, the Harris twins walk us through this process by sharing a few teens’ stories as well as their strategies to become ‘rebelutionaries.’

My favorite chapter describes accomplishing “Small Hard Things.” (Every mommy can relate: these are the things done behind closed doors that are often tedious, mundane, repeated constantly and don’t come with accolades or recognition.) As we know, often it is these small disciplines that have to be mastered before we are ready for the “big” things. The twins encourage teens to first identify those “small” things in their lives and to take control of them before launching into the larger-scale projects.

This challenging book is peppered with scripture, encouragement and simple strategies to help identify and deal with stumbling blocks in our teens (and our) lives and describes principles to adopt to help us accomplish more for Christ’s kingdom. The book ends with a very clear and compelling presentation of the gospel.

I recommend this book, especially for those teens who are likely to respond best to peer encouragement. Check here for more information!

May God bless your transition back to school!