Andy's Memos
As the title suggests, I will try to pass on memos to our song leaders when I can, discussing various topics as upcoming singing events, things we can do to help us improve our abilities, etc.
(return to WE Songs "App" home page)
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March 16. 2026
When I was in the Navy we referred to it is giving someone a "Bravo Zulu." Although it was published in various codebooks for various forms of communication (whether by radio, flashing light, semaphore, etc.), all it simply meant was "Job well done" or, as we often said at the time, "Good on ya'." I submit a Bravo Zulu on all of you, especially those that participated in our request driven song service yesterday ("Let Your Requests Be Made Known [Phlp 4:6]"). Someone may do a fair job of setting these services up in advance, but it when you brothers execute them that demonstrates how worthy the idea is. As always, keep up the good work, realizing that your work in the Lord is never in vain (1Cor 15:58).
Please notice on the "Requested Songs" page that we pretty much took care of ALL of the songs that day the congregation as a whole had requested (there are actually two more that I spotted on the list that Sunday morning which likely had been added perhaps just before Bible class; I will try to relocate them and add them to the list). There are still quite a few, however, left to sing for the Lads2Leaders camp. Their numbers are highlighted yellow on the Requested Songs page, so hopefully we can try to lead these over the next couple of weeks before our L2L participants depart for the convention in Louisville the first Sunday in April. Let's do this...!
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March 8. 2026
This week I was apprised of a problem in the Submit Song List form. When entering songs for our afternoon services, one was REQUIRED to enter a second Opening Song (along with their verses) as well as a second Pre-Lesson Song (with their verses).
Originally, I was attempting to encourage us to expand our afternoon song services with these extra songs, but it was NOT my intention to require them. Unfortunately, when creating questions for these Google eForms, they automatically are set to "Required," and one must ensure they deactivate that option if they do not wish to keep it so.
The true purpose for this addition was to follow a request from the elders to have more to sing for the opening songs in order to give stragglers time to still make it into the auditorium before our fist prayer and scripture reading. This could be accomplished by either leading two songs OR perhaps leading more verses of our opening songs. I leave those choices to your discretion.
If there are any additional problems that arise with our song submission eForm, PLEASE let me know as soon as possible. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and let's continue to help West End to sing the praises of our Lord (and to teach and encourage one another in song)!
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March 5. 2026
As you likely know by now, our Quarterly Fourth Sunday song service is coming (in about a week-and-a-half) with the theme of "Make Your Requests Known" (from Phlp 4:6). At the time I am writing this, we currently have THREE requests posted on the bulletin board in the foyer:
- #282- I Know that My Redeemer Lives
- Inside Front Cover / #991- Safe in His Arms
- #1004- Ancient Words
- "I'm not sure who is leading songs in March, but I would love it if the Lads could see you lead these as practice for Lads 2 Leaders Winners Circle. Some we don't sing very often and [some of the lads have] a hard time remembering tunes off the fly."
- Anywhere with Jesus
- Blessed Assurance
- Faith is the Victory
- He Leadeth Me
- I Know that My Redeemer Lives [yes, the #282 version{!!}]
- Higher Ground*
- I Love to Tell the Story
- I'll Fly Away
- Leaning On the Everlasting Arms
- Love Lifted Me
- My Hope is Built on Nothing Less
- No Tears in Heaven
- Send the Light
- Sinners Jesus Will Receive
- Sing to Me of Heaven
- The Gloryland Way
- To God Be the Glory
- Victory in Jesus
- When Upon Life's Billows (aka- #118- Count Your Blessings)
- Wonderful Words of Life
- Years I Spent in Vanity (aka- #53- At Calvary)
This gives us quite the opportunity! Besides the list of requested songs from our youth, we now have another list of songs from which we can draw ideas for songs to lead in future services, at least before our young ones go off to Lads 2 Leaders. AND whatever songs we don't use over the next two Sunday mornings and one afternoon could be used for our requested songs service on the 15th!
*On note about this song, "Higher Ground": there is another version out there that has rewritten the music so that it is in a "4-4", "Common Time", or march tempo (as opposed to the "3-4" or waltz tempo that we have in our Praise for the Lord hymnal). To make things potentially precarious (in my humble opinion), the folks at L2L have printed a version for these people to lead that begins the usual way but switches to that march tempo for the refrain/chorus. I will try to procure a Paperless Hymnal copy of this arrangement; so, if anyone knows this version or is fairly confident they can lead it, I say go for it (I very well may give it a try when I'm next up to lead on the 22nd).
Let's be ready to lead these songs, as many as we possibly can, before the Lads 2 Leaders get-together the first Sunday in April. More than this, let's be ready to help "Preach the Word" (2Tim 4:2) in song (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16)!!
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January 5. 2026
The elders have asked us to lengthen the amount of time we use to open our song services. Their original suggestion was to have TWO songs to begin with, however I think we can accommodate them by perhaps including a somewhat lengthy Psalm reading as a preface OR singing an opening song with as many verses as possible (perhaps all six of some hymn). The purpose for this is to give stragglers time to make it into the auditorium and be seated before our first prayer or scripture reading begins. This is true for both morning AND afternoon services.
[Note: this does NOT mean one is required to lead a medley of two hymns. If you can manage it, great, but proceed with caution.]
For those of you submitting song lists for Sunday afternoons, this means that the submission form had to be readjusted for us to be able to add more than the typical five hymns; you may now enter as many as SEVEN hymns, there being extra Opening- and Pre-Lesson songs that have been added. This means it was necessary to adjust the read-out form as well, so be certain to check that page after submission and make certain that all your songs are properly labeled (marked as "View the Songs for This Week" on the WESongs "app").
In the near future, I hope to finish developing a different worship submission sheet that would allow someone (preacher, song leader, or other interested party) to manipulate the order of services, perhaps add additional features such as extra scripture readings or suggest specific items/issues for which to pray. Be on the lookout for that.
If you have further questions or suggestions, please contact me.
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November 4. 2025
Another new page has been added to our West End Songs "app" entitled "Hymns on YouTube." This provides links to YouTube videos that play some of the hymns that we sing from both our Praise to the Lord and Bridges to Praise hymnals. This list is not (yet) comprehensive, so if you find links to hymns that are not included, PLEASE let me know so I may be able to add them [Some of you may be more into the Spotify platform; while I have found it easier to search for these hymns on YouTube, I am open to any finds/discoveries that folks may have from Spotify, and if I can get enough, I will follow up with a "Hymns on Spotify" page]. This is especially good if there is a song you wish to lead but are not quite familiar with it yet (or may wish to reacquaint yourself with it as well).
Please also note how the "West End Song Links" page has been mentioned on that "Hymns on YouTube [HOYT] page. There, after a song leader has submitted his songs for a pending Sunday, the songs can be listed and accessed individually AND even be accessed as a playlist, thus folks can either meditate on these hymns before coming to worship or reacquaint themselves with some of the tunes if needed, especially if we're singing any new or new-to-us hymns. Thus, it behooves us to turn in our song lists as soon as we can, especially if and when this "West End Song Links" page is posted and announced in the bulletin more frequently.
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September 10. 2025
A new page has been added to our West End Songs "app" entitled "Baptism Songs." As the title implies, these are song lists that some of our song leaders have contributed for future use. Although I hope we can update our physical list(s) and keep them in book form somehow at the podium, this can provide a quick list if you want one from your mobile device.
You will notice toward the end of the page it reads, "Also remember to ready to sing #??? "[No Title Yet]" as soon as our new sibling in Christ rises a new creature from that watery grave!!" It has been left ambiguous at this time because I hope to have a meeting with you guys soon (how is Sunday, September 28, between services?) to, among other things, agree upon a song that we can sing as soon as our new sibling comes out of the water (just as brother Elías sings the Spanish version of "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" and as they sing "Nothing But the Blood" at the Gateway Area Bible Camp). Let me know your thoughts on these and whatever other details may need to be brought up (an agenda will be posted soon).
Also, if you wish to contribute a list of baptism songs, that option is now available on the Submit Song List link on the main page of the West End Song Links "app."
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August 24. 2025
This year, Polishing The Pulpit held a tech solution panel session entitled "Creating Professional Presentations, Understanding Copyrights, and Using AI. One thing that was brought up was how identity thieves and other people who use the Internet for nefarious purposes can gather all kinds of data about people simply by watching the live streams that many congregations have on YouTube. This could be as innocent as the announcements we make before services about how sister Emma Nopicue is battling stage five appendix cancer, but could also be her mentioned in many of our public prayers. For this reason, it would be a good idea to not announce people by their full names whether we're mentioning people on our prayer lists OR brothers who are leading in the service (hence, from now on, you may notice that people being mentioned for serving but only by their first names).
With this in mind, at this time the Weekly Song Log Report has been suspended and will no longer be updated. If you wish to keep track of what songs we are singing or have sung over the last three months, check out the link entitled Last 3 months from the WESongs "app." There are also monthly and annual almanacs available for additional information [if you notice names being mentioned, please let me know so that the documents can be revised to protect people's identities and privacy).
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August 8. 2025
Make note of a new addition to the WESongs "App," a link to "Requested Songs." As is brought up on that page, some of the youth of our congregation submitted a list of songs they would like to see us sing more often. So, if you're ever in need of inspiration for a song to put on your song list some Sunday, go to this page!!
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July 5. 2025
Make note of the new addition to the WESongs "App," a link to the minutes from the meeting we song leaders had last Sunday. As we decided to make this a periodic occurrence, there will be future links to show scheduling and to display suggested agenda items, as well as solicit additional ones. Keep an eye on this and let's be ready to meet again in September.
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June 27, 2025 (final word for June 2 memo)
Thank you for your patience. As was announced in the auditorium Wednesday night and in the bulletin Thursday, we plan to meet in room #144 following afternoon services on Sunday, June 29. As you can see in the agenda items (which you can access at this link), I'd like to discuss various things with you guys: plans for when we hold the Area Wide Singing (July), thoughts for future baptisms*, expansion ideas for our Bridges to Praise book, and getting ideas together for our next Quarterly Fourth Sunday.
*On the point about baptisms, make sure to read the article “Clapping in Worship” (from the La Vista congregation) ahead of time.
Let's see what we can do to be productive as we lead the congregation in singing praise to our God and teaching and encouraging one another. See you there.
June 11,2025 (replacing items mentioned from June 2, 2025)
Our meeting is tentatively scheduled for June 29 following afternoon services (this is to avoid conflicts with Fathers' Day, the pending disaster relief meeting between services on June 22, and the baby shower between services on June 29), and while it follows our afternoon services we can hopefully keep it somewhat brief. Our plans are to meet in the class room next to the Clothing Distribution Storage Room across from the Fellowship Hall. While I have a couple of major items I wish to discuss with everybody (which can be noted in the Agenda which can be observed at this link), contact me if there are other issues you think should be brought up soon (perhaps sooner rather than later). Thank you for your time and attention to this, and let's keep preaching the Word [2Tm 4:2] in song [Eph 5:19; Col 3:16].
June 2, 2025
Brother Matt gave an excellent lesson a few weeks ago about better leadership styles, and I have since wanted to take it more to heart and perhaps attempt to apply them. As such, I would like for us to meet together some time this month (hopefully by Zoom, but if meeting in-person is more convenient, let me know soon so I can try to arrange such, perhaps even attempt a hybrid meeting [virtual AND in-person]). I am thinking that some time on a Saturday afternoon would be good; if we are to do it on a Sunday afternoon (likely after morning services), I will rule June 15 out immediately [Fathers' Day] and say that perhaps we COULD meet June 8 between morning and evening Bi-lingual services, but it wouldn't give us much time to prepare; I have some things I wish to pass out to you about some issues I hope we can discuss.
Speaking of issues, as I am still working on the agenda for such meeting, here is a list of some of the things I would like for us to look at and discuss:
- Revisions to the "Guardrails for Leading Singing"
- Gathering Songs for Baptisms (and procedures during them)
- The WESongs "App" (Are we using it to its fullest extent? Are there pieces we don't need, pieces we don't understand, new features we should incorporate or update*)
- *This would include the Song Submission eForm.
- Things to Consider for our Pending Area Wide Singing Hosting (Friday, July 25)
Please let me know your thoughts on these in the coming days (if you agree these are topics we should discuss, what other topics we should consider, etc.) so that we can get as much of this worked out and I can have something to report to the elders at our next EDM meeting (Sunday, July 6). You can reach me by email or by text (314-956-2639). Thank you for your help and for considering this.
Update [June 4, 2025]
It is wise that deacons are required to be "the husband of one wife." Although the husband is the head of the wife, the wife must be the neck and is able to turn the direction of the head to see what needs to be focused upon perhaps.Discussing this with my wife, she strongly suggested me meet in person (and she will make plans for us to be fed). As such, the tentative date is Sunday June22*29 between morning and afternoon services. I would like to check with the elders to make certain there will be no conflicts (as well as the family that they put in charge of fellowship events); but while I am checking with them I would still appreciate any input from you. Whatever your thoughts, please pass them on to me by the means I mentioned earlier. Lord willing [James 4:15; Proverbs 16:9], I will see some of you this evening.*Although originally intended for the 22nd, it had to be changed to the 29th because of another meeting taking place between services on the 22nd.
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March 25, 2025 [Fulfilled April 9, 2025]
In less than two weeks, we will be hosting some students from the Memphis School of Preaching, and they will be giving lessons to us for a de facto Gospel Meeting. Here are the dates, topics, and speakers:
I have created a new eForm to get an idea on our interest in this, see who is available for what days, etc. When you get a chance, please take a few moments to fill it out for me so I can get us scheduled for those days.
Thank you for your help with this, and as always let continue to "Preach the Word" (2Tm 4:2) in song (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).
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January 13, 2025
The link to the numeric index has been updated to help us song leaders when choosing our songs, particularly if we need to listen to one that we may not be familiar with before we lead it, or even simply refresh our hearing of the hymn. This blog page displays data from a Google Sheet that I use not only to list the song numbers and titles for us but keeps links to YouTube files that play music from some of those songs. This data is used for a different page for the general populace of our congregation (which is accessible from our FarceBook page West End Songs), so they can access those YouTube links if they want to familiarize themselves with songs that are listed that we will be singing on a given Sunday.
At the time of this writing, links are currently available for 372 songs (out of the 1029 that we have listed) and I seem to be adding more every week. As this is not (yet) exhaustive, if there are ever any songs you need links for, let me know by email (or text if you have my number) so I can try to find one and get our lists updated (some of these are easier to find than others).
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December 8, 2024
Due to the fact that the original Song Scratch link went to a rather complicated mess of a Google spreadsheet, I have reset it to a new page which displays whatever a new week of songs might be from whatever set of passages we are studying in our A Chapter a Day series. Try it out if you're looking for songs and let me know how it works.
UPDATE January 13, 2025:
Since we are no longer in the A Chapter A Day book, the link to Song Scratch has been deactivated for the time being (that is until I receive updated information if we are looking through specific passages of scripture over a weekly or monthly basis).
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November 20, 2024
I have managed a major breakthrough! You can now link to a Topical Index (this link has been disabled, 12/8/24) for both our Praise for the Lord and Bridges to Praise hymnals. Currently, it is a single tab in a Google Sheet where you can choose a topic ("Adoration for God," "Adoration for Jesus," "Prayer," etc.) and list songs under the given topic. Currently when I do this from my iPhone, it opens up under my Google Sheets app. Try this out from whatever devices you have and let's continue the experiment (there may be some other bugs to work out before this is optimum). Let me know what you think and (especially) if you run into problems with it. And as always, let's continue to Preach the Word (2Tim 4:2) in song (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).
UPDATE December 8,2024:
It has come to my attention that this Topical Index link is more complicated than I had originally anticipated. Until further notice it has been deactivated until I can improve upon the display. Stay tuned.
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October 16, 2024
As we continue going through brother David Sproule's book A Chapter a Day: Keeps Me on the Lord's Way, is seems good to have a ready collection of hymns that might be found indexed under the various New Testament chapters we continue to study over the next few weeks. Granted, our Praise for the Lord hymnal has such an index, but I find John Tackett's "Song Scripture and Topical Index" (he's the creator and purveyor of the Paperless Hymnal) to be more thorough (it can be adapted to Google Sheets as well as leaving it in MS Excel format; either one is good if you can handle and manipulate spreadsheets).
If you are NOT as good with spreadsheets, I have created another one, entitled Song Scratch, that simply lists some songs from the various books and chapters we have been going over. Currently, it is updated for Hebrews chapters one through six (although you can see previous listings going back to Philippians) and can be viewed at this link as well. Feel free to use it as best you can.
If you have any questions about it, see me at West End next time or feel free to text or email me as well. Thank you for your attention to this, and let's continue to Preach the Word (2Tim 4:2) in song (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16).
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September 9, 2024 [FULFILLED, September 10, 2024, marked such October 7, 2024]:
As noted in the weekly Song Log reports, I am aware of an issue with our WeSongs "app" where we seem to have glitches in some of the links we use for turning in our songs for a given Sunday and to look up various data to support that effort. I believe it has to do with a project I am working on with a new blog page that will tabulate the data we give it and provide links to YouTube and Spotify files that can replay those hymns (whether it be for our own review or to help the congregation with certain songs we may be introducing or may not have sing in quite a while). I will try to keep you posted on these projects and what corrections are made as the days go by.
Thank you for your attention to this.
UPDATE September 10,2024:
I have corrected the glitch that was in the links in the WeSongs "app" so hopefully we won't have any issues there anymore. If you run into some, please let me know as soon as possible so that I may be able to address them soon.
Also, I am continuing to build up the West End Song Links page project that I mentioned earlier. I think that it is ready enough that I can distribute the link to you guys (and we'll see how it works for people to link from the FarceBook page). Currently, you will see NOTHING because no songs have been entered for next week. I do request, when your time to turn in songs arrives, that you please get them in as soon as possible so that I can get some YouTube and Spotify links for your songs (so YOU can listen to them and/or so the congregation can as well).
By the way, last week I gathered songs together that my song indices indicate would go with certain verses in Philippians (along with YouTube and Spotify links where we can listen to them). I am gathering some more songs for Colossians at this time and am listing them on a Google Sheet entitled Song Scratch - 20240902. I'm hoping to try to keep this up each week for each survey we keep doing to hopefully help us choose hymns (and be a little more thorough than our indices in Praise for the Lord is). Currently, you can leave comments on it when you link to it (this might be good for you song leaders to mark which ones you wish to lead some week; it might also be good for preachers to indicate songs they wish to request). Good luck with this, and let me know if there are any issues with it.
Thank you again for your help and attention to this
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August 27, 2024 [FULFILLED, September 22, 2024]:
On Sunday, September 22, 2024, we will have our next Quarterly Fourth Sunday Song Service (Lord willing, of course, James 4:15). The planned theme is "Psurvey of the Psalms," where we will take various Psalms that have been set to music in our hymnbooks, read from them, have lessons over them, and sing those hymns we have for them. The following is a list of the possible Psalms and songs we have selected:
- #1007 "A Shield About Me" (Psalm 3:3-3)
- #866 "I Will Call Upon the Lord (Psalm 18:3,31,etc.; there are more verse that could be added)
- #898 "Unto Thee, O Lord" (Psalm 2:1ff)
- #843 "As the Deer" (Psalm 42:1ff)
- #1021 "Create in Me a Clean Heart" (Psalm 51)
- #766 "Whiter Than Snow" (Psalm 51)
- #649 "The Rock that is Higher" (Psalm 61:2+)
- #6 "A Mighty Fortress" (Psalm 4:1ff)
- #501 "O Worship the King" (Psalm 104)
- #891 "This is the Day" (Psalm 118:24)
- #200 "Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah" (Psalm 148:1-13 [no v.14])
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