Deiknuo's blog - the reflections of David Lewis

Migrated back to Blogger

David Lewis — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:18:58 +0000

My blog has reverted back to Blogger, after nearly two years here on WordPress.com. Thanks WordPress for the ride, but it’s time for a change!

You can find me on Blogger.

(Apologies if you’ve been clicking on the link and not getting through. One of my privacy settings was wrongly set. It’s fixed now, and you should be able to read it)!

Fleur takes a dive

David Lewis — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 21:10:32 +0000

Welcoming Daniel James Kidd

David Lewis — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:49:53 +0000

The last few days have been very busy ones. Our first grandchild, Daniel James Kidd, was born late last Thursday night, a week earlier than expected. He weighed in at a creditable 8lb 1oz. He came home with Hannah, our daughter, on Sunday morning, and the family are doing well. Margie and I have spent a couple of days visiting.

It’s great being a grandparent, especially to a baby who is so absolutely adorable.

Here’s a photo of the young family

Hannah and Chris, with Daniel

Drains and potholes

David Lewis — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:53:55 +0000

It’s amazing how often you only notice how good something is when it goes wrong.

Yesterday was an interesting day. We had a ring on the doorbell at about 8.00am, just as I was about to leave to go to church. It was someone who had been called out by our next door neighbours because there was a drain blockage. Would we mind, he asked, if he looked at our drains. Lifting up the cover on the drain on our drive, and the one on the other neighbour’s drive, revealed that the blockage was actually under our property, which he duly cleared. But it seemed that the blockage had been caused not by us but by a young family putting unsuitable baby waste down the drains. The blockage had backed the water in the drains all the way up to the end of the close in which we live, affecting not just us and our neighbours, but half a dozen other homes as well. I hope that the drain doesn’t get blocked up again, and that our neighbours find a more suitable way of getting rid of their baby waste.

And then, on the way home from our morning service, I found a couple of people on one of the roads on the estate the church is based taking photographs of a pothole. Potholes have been appearing all over the place over recent weeks because of the cold weather, and they are becoming an increasing hazard. But I’m sure that the pothole that this couple were taking photographs of was large enough to host the World Diving Championships; disappear into it and you might never be seen again.

I hope that the potholes that have appeared our way are soon mended.

We rely on our roads, and on our drains, and we only notice them when, in one way or another, they fail. So I want to say thank you this morning for roads and for drains, for gas and electricity and water, and all the good things I normally enjoy and take for granted.

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

David Lewis — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:27:20 +0000

Don’t abbrev.
Check to see if you any words out.
Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
About sentence fragments.
When dangling, don’t use participles.
Don’t use no double negatives.
Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
Just between you and I, case is important.
Join clauses good, like a conjunction should.
Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
Its important to use apostrophe’s right.
It’s better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.
Never leave a transitive verb just lay there without an object.
Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop
Use hyphens in compound-words, not just in any two-word phrase.
In letters compositions reports and things like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.
Watch out for irregular verbs that have creeped into our language.
Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
Avoid unnecessary redundancy.
A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.
Don’t write a run-on sentence you’ve got to punctuate it.
A preposition isn’t a good thing to end a sentence with.
Avoid cliches like the plague.
1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.
Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.

With thanks to Alan Wilson.

Preaching on the Church

David Lewis — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:47:48 +0000

In the first few months of this year we are going to be considering the subject of the church in both our morning and our evening services.

In our morning services we are going to be looking at the character, life and ministry of Jesus. This might sound odd, thinking about the church by looking at Jesus, but it is my hope that as we focus on Christ we will discover a fresh calling to be the body of Christ in the world today. I began the series this morning by looking at Matthew 16 with Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and with Jesus then shaping what that meant by talking about his suffering and challenging his followers to take up their own cross as they follow him.

In our evening services we are going to be focussing on the church in Corinth, as we consider Paul’s letters to the Christians there. We’re not going to be going through the letters verse by verse, or chapter by chapter. Rather, we are going to study 1 and 2 Corinthians thematically, looking at some of the themes and issues raised in these letters. This evening’s sermon was a basic introduction to the series, as we considered Paul’s arrival in Corinth.

Straw on the Christmas Tree

David Lewis — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:34:35 +0000

Thanks to a suggestion made in the CPAS book, ‘Making the most of Christmas 2′, everyone who came to church yesterday was handed a piece of straw as they went home, to put on their Christmas tree. The straw was to remind them of the humble beginning of the life of Jesus, the Saviour of the World, and also that he is able to take us, transform us, and use us in his service.

I was delighted with the way that everyone took this to heart, and their eagerness to take some straw home to use as part of their Christmas decorations.

The Nursery School Nativity

David Lewis — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:57:12 +0000

On Wednesday and Thursday of this week I was privileged to be invited to watch the Nativity Play that the Nursery School who use our premises puts on – two different casts telling the same story. Following the performance I get to say a few words, and then invite the families present to join us for some of our services over the Christmas period.

As I say to them each year, the Nursery School Nativity kicks off my Christmas. It’s a real joy to watch these little children retell the story of the Nativity in a very simple way. And it’s a joy that they remain reasonably scriptural in their production – we don’t get snowflakes, or chickens, or reindeer! (Last year, though, there was an unscripted appearance of one of the lads with a policeman’s helmet)!

Each year there are funny moments that remain with me. This year, in one of the performances, the donkey who accompanied Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem insisted on sitting in between Mary and Joseph when they were shown to the stable by the innkeeper. No doubt the poor lad was confused; after all, his name was Joseph!

All in all, a good event, and an opportunity to connect with some of the families who use our premises.

The world’s deepest bin – a bit of fun

David Lewis — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:46:19 +0000

Making good behaviour fun, with grateful thanks to David Keen for pointing me in this direction.

Playing the game

David Lewis — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:34:46 +0000

We have all seen in the news recently various items concerning highly paid sportsmen who will stop at nothing to win: footballers who dive to get a penalty awarded to them, or a rugby player who pretends he’s been injured, at the command of his coach, so that he can be substituted for another player. I suppose that the money that is involved in sport leads to the must win at any price mentality that seems to be prevalent in many sports nowadays.

I am competitive when it comes to playing games, but I hope that I would never cheat in order to win. However, recently I have been reflecting more generally on whether my Christian faith comes through in the way that I play games. How important is winning to me? Do I play in what I might call an ethical way?

Let me give you a light-hearted example. Over the last week or two I’ve been playing FarmVille. FarmVille is a game which can be found through Facebook where you are responsible for developing a farm. As you make progress and gain experience you are able to grow a bigger selection of crops and purchase better equipment. You can interact with Facebook friends who also play FarmVille, sending each other gifts and helping in small tasks around the farm.

But the aim of the game is to maximise profits and move up quickly through the various levels of experience. And so the temptation is to farm your land very intensively: your livestock is squeezed into as small a space as possible, and every inch of your farm must be utilised effectively.

I’ve decided, though, that I don’t want to play the game that way. I want to leave space between my crops. I want my animals to have space to move around in. In short, I have decided that I want to farm ethically, even if it is only a game. I may not be as profitable a farmer as some, but that’s fine by me. I’d rather play the game according to my Christian principles!

If you are on Facebook and play FarmVille, do come and be my neighbour, and hold me accountable if I start being too concerned about making a profit!