August 31, 2007
6. TAKE TIME OUT. Spend a few minutes alone each day to break the routine. This helps ease stress and gives you a better perspective of what’s around you. Take a walk, get a hobby, exercise. Take a few vacation days or at least a few hours off, you deserve it. Physical fitness gives you a feeling of well-being by relieving tension and increasing productivity.
7. THINK POSITIVELY. Having a positive attitude will help you assert yourself and feel more in control. You waste energy if you constantly criticize yourself or set unrealistic goals. Negative thoughts generally produce negative results. Instead of saying, “I can’t” practice saying “I can.” You’ll be surprised how much more you can accomplish.
8. HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR. Laughter can be one of the best medicines for stress. Being able to laugh at yourself and the world can break tension and give you some relief from stress.
9. COMMUNICATE. Suffering in silence only increases the stress you build up inside. Talk over your feelings and concerns with your family, a friend, counselor, pastor, etc. Communication is a key that solves many issues. Do not let stress and pressure build up to the point where you explode and have to “let off some steam”.
10. MAKE DECISIONS. Most people have no idea how much stress they create for themselves by resisting change. They wait, hoping a situation will go back to the way it was. Why wait when you have choices and could make a decision? When it’s time to change old habits and move forward, make your own change for the better.
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 30, 2007
1. DO WHAT YOU CAN DO. The first thing when it comes to handling stress and pressure is to learn to do what you can do. Think practically about what you in fact can do about your situation; write down solutions that are doable and then start to do what you can do.
2. GIVE EVERYTHING ELSE TO GOD. Most people carry too much stress. Some people even feel stress about things that they are not even facing right now, but they think that it could be a possibility. Learn to give the things that you can’t change and alter to God. Prayer, reading God’s word, and worship are tools that release stress. Let the pressures of life drive you into the promises of God.
3. PREVENT IT. How much stress do you cause just by putting unnecessary pressure on yourself? Do you over react to little things that annoy you? Every time you let anger or frustration take control, it drains away good energy and side tracks you from more important things. Obviously, you can’t always control what goes on around you, but you can control how you respond to it.
4. SET GOALS. Some people drift through life going from crisis to crisis letting stress build up. If you set goals, you can take better control of your life. Think where you’d like to be in 1 year or 5 years. Be realistic by starting with small daily goals, then build up from there. Re-evaluate your goals from time to time and be prepared to adjust them as changes occur in your life.
5. ESTABLISH PRIORITIES. Do you often feel rushed because “there’s no time”? Why not regulate the pace of your life? Plan ahead. Make a list of tasks in order of priority. Concentrate on what’s really important to you and drop those things that only waste your energy.
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 29, 2007
Preaching with a rolex watch and tons of diamonds worth thousands of dollars was somewhat interesting. Not that there is something bad about having things, that by themselves are worth about what a car cost, it is not just my style. By the way, I have to make sure that I send out a proper “thank you” to our consigliere, you know who you are……..thank so so much for hooking me up!
Anyways, we talked about pressure and by the result of the message I now know that just about everyone in our church is facing some kind of pressure. It is great to know that we hit a nerve and finished the “Rock” series with this message.
As I said on Sunday, a diamond is the result of a piece of rock with carbon in it that has been under intense pressure. Never forget that.
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 25, 2007
24 Hour Missions Trip
We are gearing up to “Impact Miami” for 24 intense hours. There is no cost and we will feed you, all you need to do is sign up on Sunday. We will start September 7th @ 7:00 pm and will end at 7:00 pm on the 8th. Get ready to experience something that you never thought that you would be apart of: Give God 24 hours and see what He can do.
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 24, 2007
Potential or failure, opportunities or defeat, it is all in the eyes of the beholder. In the old testament, God gave Abraham a picture of what his legacy would be, look at it in Genesis 22:17. God said that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the sea shore.
What was God doing? He put a picture, a visual, in front of Abraham of what he was going to do and what was to come. Here is a question for you “what picture do you have for your future, ministry, family, etc.”? When you envision and catch the dream that God has for you, keep if constantly in front of you it will affect where you are going. What you keep in front of you will affect your direction, motivation, passion.
Remember one thing, learn to see things the way that God does. It says in Isaiah 55:9 that God ways are higher than our ways and that His thoughts are higher than ours.
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 10, 2007
This past Sunday was Pastor William and Martha last Sunday with us at Vision. As you might know they are moving on to Ocala and even though it is with sadness that we let them go it is with our best wishes and gratitute we say goodbye. Thank you for they way that you as a church expressed your gratitude over them on Sunday. As a pastor, I am so blessed to see the monetary blessing that the church gave in the love offering on top of what we decided to give from the church budget.
It was so great to hear the stories of how lives have been impacted through William’s ministry and I know that there are not many people who are like him. You will be greately missed!
You can view more pictures just click here
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 3, 2007
Yesterday was a very memorable day for me. I took off John’s training wheels from his bike and it only took him about 10 minutes to get a hold of this biking thing. As a father, these moments when you can be there for your child are truly priceless and the memories that you create will be there for a lifetime.
Life is all about creating memories. One part of what I do as a pastor is leading people and creating spiritual memories and lessons. As we just returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic a large part of what we were doing was creating memories for the team. Everything from how to do devotions, listen to God, putting someone in a stretching situation all was part of us creating memories.
Learn to live, have fun and create memories. Time is one of those things that we can’t take back and it is probably the one thing that many of us wish that we would have used more wisely.
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
August 2, 2007
This Sunday we are starting a new series that we call “Rock”. I am really exited for this series since we are going to talk about the reality of who God is. The Bible uses the word “Rock” over 100 times, God is refered to as our “Rock”. Psalm 31:2 says “Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.”
David used a rock to kill the giant Goliath, Moses struck a rock and water came out from it. We are told in the new testament to hear God’s words, put them into practice and by doing so becoming like a man that built his house upon the rock.
Today we use phrases like “my marriage is on the rocks” or in a bar you might hear someone order a drink “on the rocks”. Diamonds are also called rocks and in reality they are carbon based material that has been under intense pressure and heat. The question is; how do we handle pressure and how do we allow God to be our Rock?
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Posted by Mathias Grehn
