February 2008 » Archive » Steve Eller Creative - Worship, Web Design

For the last two years I have been a 1099-MISC independent contractor for our church. Unfortunately, this throws me into the highest tax bracket, and we get slaughtered during tax time. Guess what I am going to be using my federal rebate for this year?

The bad news is that we got slammed again this year, The good news, I am a W-2 employee this year, and I finished our taxes tonight, so I will not have have to file this way again!!

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taxes

Tim Hughes @ Horizon CF

20 February 2008 By Steve Eller In music, worship

Me and some from our team were able to go see Tim Hughes tonight. An awesome night of worship and encouraging teaching. Refreshment, ahhhh!!

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music, tim hughes, worship

Rancho Vista Church - Chula Vista, CA

20 February 2008 By Steve Eller In portfolio web, recent

Rancho Vista Church - Chula Vista, CA

Rancho Vista church is a 5 year-old church plant in the rapidly growing community of Chula Vista, CA–just south of San Diego. This site includes a podcast, upcoming events, blog, video, and ministry pages all wrapped within Wordpress.

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portfolio, web design

God Of This City

20 February 2008 By Steve Eller In music, rancho vista, worship

There are certain times in leading worship that you are so aware a song is being used to connect people to God in a big way. This was the case this past weekend. We introduced “God Of This City”, and wow, did it connect! We had people calling our pastor after church. That is God, not me!

I had shared with our church about how the song was written. If you haven’t heard it, it is a powerful testimony (from Bluetree) of God breathing into a song, and into a community. It was a prayer for a community in need of God. This tied in so well with our Revolution series. It is also my prayer for our church, that as we discover the change God brings about in our own lives, we might begin to pray for a revolution in our community of Chula Vista and see what God can do!

Here is an excerpt from the interview with Bluetree:

“There’s a couple from Carrickfergus, Ian and Leslie, and they moved out to Thailand to a place called Pattaya. We got asked to go and be part of an event called Pattaya Praise. Pattaya is a seaside town/resort place, and physically, it looks to be like the darkest place you’ll ever go to. And spiritually, it is THE darkest place we have ever been to. You just feel the evil. You just feel the enemy all over that place. It’s a very small place. . . But in that small area in Thailand, there are 30,000 prostitutes and that figure excludes kids and excludes anything that’s outside of the range of, say 18-30, and who are female. . .

Part of what we were asked to do was to go out and be part of an event which runs for four or five days. It had things like 24/7 worship and prayer and social action going on helping the people who clean the streets every morning. We played in a school and ministered in an orphanage and tried to get a heart for that city. As a band we were getting cold feet because we had four days in Bangkok to start, and in those four days it was great. We’d be quite hyperactive, and it was flat-out, four days; not an hour was lost to sleep in those four days. On the Sunday we managed to play in one church and it was brilliant, but we wanted more. And then when we got to Pattaya . . . we said, ‘If you can get us anywhere else to play, anywhere, we want to play. We just want to do what we do in the middle of somewhere and just go head-on into it.”

“There was a bar called The Climax Bar - on a street that’s about 10 metres wide, it’s a kilometre long and it’s filled with everything you can physically imagine. And I promise you, as a red-blooded male, to keep your head in the right place you’ve got to look down at the ground and walk down that street and pray because it is just so in your face. People hit you with menus about everything, flashing lights, just everything you can imagine goes on in that place. You see kids as young as eight, nine, 10, just selling themselves, you know?! You see 60-year-old guys walking down the street with two 13 or 14-year-old girls. Forget about the Christian thing, you just get raging! You properly get raging when you see that happening, you know?!”

. . . We got the chance to play in this bar, a two-hour worship set in this bar. I don’t think the people in the bar spoke a word of English but we basically got to go in. The deal was that we play and we bring a following of people with us; so we’re there, set up, really good gear! So we all set up and there was like 20 Christians all standing in front of us, and the deal was we play, they buy lots of drinks, alright? I don’t think the place has ever sold so much Coke in its whole life in one night!

And we got to play for two hours. And just the way the band set up, we like using loops, and at one point I just started singing out. I started singing “Greater Things”, something along those lines, almost prophesying over the city. And without going into the band dynamics, slowly this groove emerged from this thing. And long story short; we walked out of that Climax Bar with pretty much a nailed song, as strange as that sounds. Then we were on the way home.We were all. . .it was that tumbleweed silence, you know? It was like, ‘What actually just happened in that time?!’ It was one of the most powerful worship experiences we’ve ever had. I actually remember looking out, and you’re looking down a wee alleyway, into the street, and it was just 50 or 60 probably British tourists and they’re just sitting there listening going, ‘What is this all about?’ Coming from The Climax Bar which is pretty much a strip club. Just, here we are singing about Jesus in the middle of this. . . It was one of the most random experiences but it was a God thing, God was there.”

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god of this city, music, rancho vista, worship

Snow Day - 2/18/08

18 February 2008 By Steve Eller In family

We were able to get up to the Julian area today and play a little bit in the snow. We tried to go on Saturday but we had car trouble. Fortunately there was still enough snow left to have a blast.

We are supposed to get more rain this week. If that translates into snow there will be a snow day 2 next weekend!

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family, snow

For Your Listening Enjoyment..

11 February 2008 By Steve Eller In music

music

re:create

08 February 2008 By Steve Eller In music, worship

Ok, so I couldn’t go to re:create in Nashville so Bobby M. brought it to me. This pic was from a video chat where I got to see and hear Brenton Brown and Matt Maher. Bob you are the man!!! I even pulled out my guitar and worshipped with them.