Hey, I'm Chris from Kids' Club, and today we're going to surprise a kid in Kids' Club.
Her name is Reese.
She started a group called Reese's Heart.
We're surprising her with this giant check for $1,000.
Oh, my gosh.
Hey, Reese.
Hi.
How are you?
Hi.
Hi. Surprise.
Greetings, friends.
You're just in time to hear about the Erstwhile Evangelism of Ecumenical Enthusiasm,
the early church.
I'm Dr Archie Logical.
Ah, the early church.
Those quietly clandestine communities of Christian care,
the germinating genesis of Jesus following Jews and Gentiles in Jerusalem.
The early church began after Jesus died, rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven.
Jesus had told his disciples they would receive power from the Holy Spirit to go into all the
world to spread the good news of God's kingdom and to baptize people into the family of God.
That was the point of the church then, and it's the point of the church today.
Oh, that's not the church.
That's me before I've had my morning coffee.
Ah, that's better.
Nowadays, when people use the word church, they mostly mean the building where services are held.
But in a point of fact, the early church had no permanent buildings,
no special cathedrals or soaring steeples or stained glass windows
or long wooden pews or ornate pipe organs or stunning sound systems.
And that's because the church wasn't a place at all .
It was a group of people doing their best to live like Jesus.
The early church was basically a bunch of small clusters of Jesus
followers in different cities throughout the Roman Empire.
People of all races - the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak,
all meeting together because of their shared faith in Jesus.
Mostly, they met in people's houses to share stories about Jesus and have a meal together.
The homes basically looked like this - mud and stone walls,
one or two main rooms where people would sit together on the dirt floor.
These groups might have been just a couple of families who shared
everything - their food, their money, their talents, their stuff.
Acts Chapter 2 says, "They shared everything they had. They gave to anyone who needed something.
They met together. They ate meals together in their homes, and they were glad and sincere."
Sounds like a good group to be a part of if you ask me.
And because of their love,
generosity and faith, people who weren't part of the church wanted to be part of the church.
Sometimes the church met in big marketplaces or fields and
thousands of people would decide to follow Jesus and join the church all in a single day.
It was a regularly recurring revival, and you can read all about it in the New Testament.
It wasn't always easy to be part of the church, and
over the centuries, the church has changed a lot.
But what's still true is that the church is more than a building with a steeple.
It's people, all kinds of people, following Jesus in community with one another.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to enjoy this homemade horseradish Harvardian ham hoagie.
Hmm, that's humongous.
God's story: Stephen.
So part of God's story is about a man named Stephen.
But before we get started, you should know Stephen isn't some hero who defeated his
enemies in an incredible battle or spectacularly escaped capture.
What makes Stephen amazing was his determination to lay everything on the line for Jesus,
even his life.
So, anyway, Stephen's story goes like this:
After Jesus came back to life and rose into Heaven, the church began to spread like wildfire.
Both the disciples and brand new people began to journey to the ends of the earth
telling others about God's love and how he rescued all of us through Jesus.
Now, one of these new followers inspired by God's love was Stephen,
a man full of God's grace and power.
Stephen traveled all over and performed all kinds of fantastic miracles,
the whole time he was sharing the story of God's amazing rescue plan for all of us.
The problem is not everyone was happy about what Stephen was preaching.
Believers were made fun of, beaten and thrown in jail.
Sometimes followers of Jesus were even put to death
for refusing to stop telling others about God's rescue plan.
We call these brave men and women martyrs.
So like a bunch of bullies, some of the Jewish leaders began to spread
a rumor that Stephen was making fun of Moses and God with his speeches
causing a group called the Sanhedrin to become upset with Stephen.
Now you may be thinking, "What's a Sanhedrin.
That sounds like some kind of fire-breathing sand dragon thing."
Well, since the Sanhedrin was a group of powerful leaders in Jewish culture,
Stephen might have been better off if it was a dragon.
Even though he had done nothing but perform miracles and tell others about
God's awesome rescue plan, things didn't seem to be going so well for Stephen.
In fact, Sanhedrin even put him on trial and had people lie about him.
But Stephen knew that following God didn't mean things would be easy.
He knew that really loving God means standing by what you believe in, even when things get hard.
Stephen could have backed down.
He could have taken back his words, but he didn't.
You see, many of the Israelites didn't believe that Jesus was really God's son,
the rescuer that God had promised.
So Stephen told stories to remind the Sanhedrin that God built his family
through people like Abraham and Moses and Jesus was the rescuer God had planned to send them.
When they ignored that truth, they were disobeying God.
After he finished, Stephen looked up and
saw Jesus standing next to God in Heaven looking back down at him.
We don't know for sure what they look like, but we do know God loves it when we share his story
so maybe they were giving Stephen a big thumbs up.
The members of the Sanhedrin were so mad after Stephen finished his speech that the Bible says,
"They gnashed their teeth, yelled at the top of their lungs and dragged him out into the city."
They gathered around Stephen and threw heavy stones at him, but even while they
were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out,
"Do not hold this sin against them." And the Bible says that when he finished saying this, he died.
And that's it.
That's the end of Stephen's life, at least here on Earth.
An earthquake didn't save him, and fire didn't fall from the sky.
That's not what this story is about.
It's about how Stephen lived and died telling people about Jesus,
no matter what others said or did.
And that's the story of Stephen.
But that's not all there is.
Here's a quick version of what happened after Stephen was martyred.
News of Stephen's death spread.
Followers of Jesus across the Roman Empire were inspired.
God's family got even more bold spreading his rescue plan further than ever.
The church grew and took God's good news across the globe, even when it wasn't safe,
just as Stephen did.
And that's a part of God's story.
So people in the early church, like Stephen, had real faith,
and I don't just mean that they went to church every week.
Although they did, and it was also more than sharing the good news of Jesus with
others, even though they did a lot of that, too.
They showed their faith, and how they acted like Jesus when people thought about the church.
They thought about people who were famous for their love, for how they cared for people who
were sick or poor, how they shared everything with their neighbors and even their bravery.
Now, how do we think of church today?
Are we known for showing love and generosity to people who need help?
See there's a difference between being people who go to church and being people who are the church.
Acts 2:44-47 says, "All the believers were together. They shared everything they had.
They sold property and other things they owned they gave to anyone who needed something. Every
day they met together in the temple courtyard. They ate meals together in their homes. Their
hearts were glad and sincere. They praised God. They were respected by all the people,
and every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved."
Now, where I live in Cincinnati,
there's a group called Reese's Heart that is known for its love and generosity and faith.
You met Reese at the beginning of this episode when we told her about
a big donation coming her way, but what did Reese do with what she was given?
Well, we'll let her tell you.
Hi, Reese.
Can you introduce us to your family?
Yes, this is my dad. This is my mom, and this is my big sister, Carson.
So it's good to see you all today.
Now you guys all as a family, you, you are Reese's Heart, right?
Yeah. Yes.
So Reese, your family's all part of it, but I know this was kind of your idea.
What is Reese's Heart?
How did it get started?
We were downtown by Music Hall when I just started seeing homeless people where I was just like, wow,
this is, this really needs to stop, because it's really sad just to see people on the streets.
So then we decided to come up with the organization heart.
Then we make bags for them.
They're called blessing beds, and we put like toiletries and snacks in there that they need.
So Mom, Dad, when Reese had that idea, what was your reaction?
When I found out why she was upset, um because she wanted to serve somebody,
it gave us an opportunity to go out. Like, okay, there's something that can be done.
We got to talking about it.
I said, "Well, let's come up with some ideas. What are you,
what are some things that you think we do to help?"
So I, I was just touched and inspired by her heart for the homeless community.
And as we started brainstorming, we're like okay, what would we call this?
And said this is all inspired by your heart, you know, for the homeless.
And we hope that it will inspire others.
What about you, Carson?
Well, I was really proud of Reese for coming up with the idea.
There's so much in this world that we could give
to others who need it, but coming from an eight-year-old at the time who wants
to help the others, it just goes to show that kids can change the world.
That was a nice big this time that was great.
She said, totally tearing up here,
it's inspiring. And it's also like, hey, this is what we're here to do.
So Reese, now that your your idea is getting so big,
it needs to be its own nonprofit organization.
What is going through your mind right now?
My mom and dad told me God loves everyone.
We have a job to help others and love others, just like God loves us.
My dad once said we help when we see a hurt.
Hi, good morning, good morning.
Come on in, thanks.
This is my lovely family right here, and the table where, uh, we gather stuff and put stuff.
Where this area is, where
you, uh, get the stuff like snacks right here and then like soap, body wash and all that.
And then like the super, super shaving cream.
One day we were downtown, and I saw a man who was homeless.
I wanted to give him my bag of chips, but then I started thinking about what
everything else he needed.
He needed food, water, clothing and a home.
I felt so sad for him that I started to cry.
I wanted to do something, but I didn't know what.
That same night, our family got together at the kitchen table to figure out
what we could do to help.
For two years, my older sister, Carson,
and I have been putting together blessing bags full of supplies.
Homeless people need socks, snacks, hand warmers and bars of soap.
Stuff like that.
And then we give the blessing bags to people we meet.
My family decided to give a name to what we were doing - Reese's Heart.
My mom and dad liked this name because our work started because of my heart for the homeless,
and we wanted to inspire others to open up their hearts for the needs of the homeless.
Our friends found out what we were doing, and they wanted to donate supplies.
And then their friends wanted to help the vision that God gave us.
Keeps getting bigger.
Today my goal is to hand out 5,000 blessing bags by 2023 so when we got the big check,
I talked with my family about what God wanted us to do with the money.
We decided to donate to a local shelter to help as many people as possible.
For me, my family, this is how we serve God
by being like Jesus, by loving our neighbors, by giving to those who are in need.
It all started with something small.
One little girl who wanted to help one other person.
God can take our small ideas and turn them into big blessings.
This is Reese's Heart, and we're just getting started.
So we passed out a bag to a gentleman.
We try to do each time and say, "Hey, is there anything we can pray for you about?"
And at that time, the gentleman said, "I just need a blanket."
We got in the car.
I went to a close store
and bought a blanket and took it back to the gentleman, and he was so grateful.
Sometimes prayer is action.
It's about actually
meeting that need in that moment, especially if you have the resources to do so.
Think about a kid who's watching this.
Maybe they're on Youtube.
Maybe they're alone.
Maybe they're with their family.
What is it that you'd like to say to them?
What do you want them to know?
You should serve others before yourself, because not all people have the stuff that you have.