Anchor Point Church

Worship Notes Part 8: The Benediction

This post is part of a series explaining the elements of our worship service.

This week we come to the end of our series explaining the various elements of our worship service. The final piece of the service every week is the benediction. Benediction simply means the bestowal of a blessing; as we end the service each week the pastor bestows a blessing (usually straight from Scripture) from God upon God’s people.

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

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Merger Matters



We—Pastors Emeriti Dan & Reinaldo—are giving Lead Pastor Andy a break today by writing the weekly blog. We are also writing it to provide you with more information on the Cottonwood/Rio West merger which took place around this time ten years ago. And we hope that you see God’s hand in this by way of His grace and mercy on us over the past ten years and many years before that.

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog
Available in audio—listen anytime, anywhere 🎧
https://www.anchorpointlife.com/edit #/page/audio-blogs

11 Principles for AI and Bible Study

AI is powerful. Because of this, it can be a powerful tool for good and a powerful tool for harm. When I say this, I don’t mean that AI is totally neutral—no tool is neutral in the ultimate sense. Every tool we use shapes us and the task we are accomplishing. And so, as believers, we need to approach AI with eyes wide open to how it will shape us, for better and for worse.

This is particularly true with regard to our study of Scripture. Scripture is the Word of the living God. As such, reading and studying Scripture is never a matter of mere information gathering; it is a spiritual endeavor which involves our whole selves in relationship with God. Since this is the case, where does AI fit in?

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Worship Notes Part 6: Prayer

This post is part of a series explaining each element of our worship service. Check out part 1 here, part 5 here.



This week, we turn to reflect on an element of our service that is probably the most easily overlooked: prayer. We pray several times throughout our service; often there is a prayer between two of the songs we sing as well as a prayer before and after the sermon. The reason we are considering prayer here though, is because our longest formal prayer time on Sunday mornings (the “pastoral prayer”) comes toward the end of the service, after the song which responds to the sermon.

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Available in audio—listen anytime, anywhere 🎧
https://www.anchorpointlife.com/edit #/page/audio-blogs

Pastor's blog https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Photo from Robert Schrader on Pexels

Worship Notes: 15 Important Questions (Intermission)

This week we are pausing our series walking through the elements of our worship service. If you need to go back and catch up, please do so! Next week we will resume.

In the meantime, I want to share with you a related article written by another pastor, aimed at helping us participate more fruitfully in corporate worship. It is titled, “Fifteen Questions to Help You Grow in Corporate Worship”. You can access it here.



I encourage you to read it and reflect on how you engage with the worship service each Sunday morning.

See you Sunday!

Andy

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Worship Notes Part 4: The Gospel Arc

This post is part of a series walking through the elements of our worship service. See part 1 here. See part 3 here. Last week we looked at singing as an element of our worship services. This week, I want to draw your attention to one more aspect of the way we have chosen to structure the singing in our services. My hope is that by seeing this you will be helped to engage with the singing more richly.

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Available in audio—listen anytime, anywhere 🎧
https://www.anchorpointlife.com/edit #/file/308a9f20-91e7-11f1-b554-71fe08cd16b6

Photo from Jens Mahnke on Pexels

Worship Notes Part 3: Singing

This week we continue our look at the various elements of our worship service. If you missed the last couple of installments, you can access them here: Part 1, Part 2

After our service begins with the call to worship, the next thing we do most often is sing. It’s slightly odd if you think about it. Christians probably sing together in groups more than almost anyone else in the world; from the very beginning of the church, Christians have been a singing people, and even before that in the Old Testament singing regularly characterized the worship

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Available in audio—listen anytime, anywhere 🎧
https://www.anchorpointlife.com/edit #/page/audio-blogs

Photo on Pexels

Photo from Dana Davis on Pexels

Worship Notes Part 2: Call to Worship


This post is part 2 of a series examining our worship service. See the previous post here: part 1.

Last week I introduced this series of blog posts aimed at exploring why we do everything we do in our worship service on Sunday mornings. Today we begin our step-by-step journey through Sunday mornings with the first element; the call to worship.

You might be thinking that the very first thing we do is the welcome and announcements—and while we do those things at 10 o’clock, we intentionally do them before the call to worship. The call to worship is what marks the actual start of our time worshipping the Lord together.

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Available in audio—listen anytime, anywhere 🎧
https://www.anchorpointlife.com/edit #/file/3219f230-86e5-11f1-a3f2-6313935c1cf9

Photo from Pexels

Worship Notes Part 1: Why Do We Do That?


Have you ever been in church on Sunday and wondered, “why are we doing this”? I’m not talking about why we gather to worship at all—though that is an important question as well, and if you want to read some basic thoughts on that, you can see the three blog posts I wrote last year on the topic: part 1, part 2, part 3

Pastor's Blog: https://www.anchorpointlife.com/page/blog

Available in audio—listen anytime, anywhere 🎧
https://www.anchorpointlife.com/file/29d4afc0-814f-11f1-b310-c91b6025910b