Church and Community - Lesson Two: Ye Shall Be Witnesses

What does it truly mean to be a witness? Acts 1:8 gives us a mandate that goes far deeper than we might first realize. When we receive the Holy Ghost, we are not just given a feeling or an experience to keep to ourselves. We are given dunamis, a Greek word meaning the power to make a difference, to influence others, to change situations. This is the same root word from which we get our word dynamite. That is not firecracker power. That is world-shaking, life-altering power. And Acts 1:8 tells us exactly who we are meant to reach with it: friends, backsliders, enemies, and strangers at the uttermost parts of the earth. The message from Bishop Mark Cottrill on Sunday, October 25th 2026 challenges us to look honestly at the people in our lives, the coworker who rubs us wrong, the neighbor we have drifted from, the family member we have not spoken to in years, and ask a simple but piercing question: do they need to be saved? Romans 13:1-2 reminds us that resisting this power is not a small thing. When we let our flesh talk us out of witnessing, out of reaching out, out of turning a conversation toward Jesus, we are resisting something God has ordained. The early church did not grow by staying comfortable. Persecution scattered believers out of Jerusalem, and wherever they landed, they told people what they had seen and heard. That is all a witness does. We tell our story. No one can argue with what we have personally experienced.