Bill Stonebraker's Testimony, cont.

CHANGED FROM THE INSIDE-OUT

“I had been into so many of these other trips. I had been into Spiritism, because my mother was into it. We used to hold séances. They would call up the dead, and there were times when these so-called entities would speak. I would be a channel for them and talk to the people in the room about their departed loved ones.”

“I got involved in hypnotism, biofeedback; I followed the Indian prophet Sri Aurobindo. I was into Yoga, self-realization, and body-consciousness. If you had an ounce of fat on your body, I thought it was evil. I had been trying to find fulfillment from the outside in, and it wasn’t working. I was more lonely and more lost.”

So when Bill heard this man say Christ could change him from the inside out, he thought, “What have I got to lose? If his God is as powerful as he says He is, what have I got to lose?”

“So I asked the guy, ‘What do I have to do?’ and he replied, ‘Why don’t you pray this prayer with me.’ And I prayed that night to receive Christ.”

“I wasn’t going to be religious though,” says Bill. “If Christ was real, He was going to have to change me. So I finished my beers. And I didn’t really think much about it afterwards.”

Supernatural things began to happen in Bill’s life, however. Desires began to change. God brought other believers across Bill’s path.

MAYBE I'LL GO TO CHURCH

After a particularly hectic and aggressive surf session out at Gas Chambers and Rocky Point, Bill was frustrated and angry, ready to punch somebody. He got into his van and headed out to pick up his son. His head pounding from a headache, he began thinking, “I’ve got to get around some nice people. Maybe I’ll go to church.” When he arrived to pick up Bud, the young girl there asked, “Would you like to come to church with me tomorrow?” The question blew Bill away. “I was just thinking about that,” he told her. “Yeah, okay, I’ll go.”

The next day they went to a little country church, part of a traditional denomination. It was old-fashioned, with organ music and a very simple sermon. At the end the pastor asked if anyone would like to come forward to receive Christ.

“This is what I was thinking,” says Bill. “This girl expects me to go down to the altar, so I’ll do it. She brought me and I don’t want to disappoint her, so I’ll do it.” But looking back on it, he realizes she was diligently praying for him.

So Bill walked up the hardwood floor to the front of the church. As he went, he heard someone let out a holler and say, “All right!” Being a surfer, Bill had come to expect that if he got in a tube someone might yell out. But it seemed strange in church. The pastor seemed a little taken back by his coming forward. It was as though Bill was the only person to have come forward in the past 40 years. He couldn’t believe it!

FINALLY A CONNECTION

Bill prayed to receive Christ and then the pastor baptized him. Afterwards, Bill learned that the guys that had let out the hollers were in Hawaii making a Christian surf movie, “Tales from the Tube.” Bill never thought Christianity and surfing would mesh; he couldn’t understand how you could be both a surfer and a Christian. Talking to these guys, he began to finally connect.

As Bill got to know other believers, he began to understand that Christ is real. Over time, he made several other altar calls, but he was growing in his faith. After a while, he began reexamining his marriage. Danita and he were leading separate lives, one foot in the door toward divorce. Finally he came to her and said that, since he was now a Christian, he wanted to be a good husband and father.

A BROKEN HEART LEARNS TO LOVE

Danita’s response was immediate: “I’m not crazy about you, and I’m certainly not crazy about Jesus Christ.” She still didn’t want to have anything to do with Bill.

Over time, the Lord broke Bill’s heart and gave him a love for Danita and their children that he had never had before. “I realized that if I lost them, I would have lost the most precious thing that I’d ever had. I didn’t know that before; I was blind to it. It took the Lord Jesus Christ coming into my life to give me that kind of love.”

“My mom did the best she could,” says Bill. “But I didn’t have that father figure. I never had anybody to look up to; I never had that feeling of love, so I thought I didn’t have the capacity to love others. But when Christ came into my life, a change happened.”

At first Danita thought it was simply another trip Bill was on. Over time, however, she saw the change that took place in Bill’s life. After a few months, she consented to remain living with him, but she told him sternly: “If you ever become a pastor, that’s when we get a divorce!”

Needless to say, the Stonebrakers’ marriage is still going strong.

CALVARY CHAPEL & PASTOR CHUCK

Bill opened his house out on the North Shore for a Bible study, and the Lord began to work. They had a variety of people from all over the Christian spectrum in as guest speakers. They also had a few uninvited speakers of questionable spiritual origins. Throughout all of it, the Lord poured out His Spirit upon those who were truly seeking Him. People were packing out the house at the Bible study; they were bursting at the seams.

They had continued to attend the little traditional church on Sundays, but eventually people wanted something more. Although there was love and stability, there was no life spiritually. Among his Pentecostal friends, Bill found a lot of excitement, but no stability in the Word.
“I felt like I didn’t fit anywhere. I loved the Spirit but I also loved the Word. I knew everything was to be done decently and in order, and a lot of things happened at the studies that were totally bizarre. But on the other hand, the little church denied the move of the Spirit.”

Then one day another surfer came to him with a teaching on cassette tape and said, “You’ve got to hear this guy. His name is Chuck Smith. There’s something happening in Southern California.” At the time, Bill didn’t have any idea who Chuck was, and he wasn’t looking for a mentor.

A TRUE "BRAIN WASH"

“When I started listening to Chuck and his simple teaching of the Word of God, my heart burned within me,” remembers Bill. “What God was doing there in Southern California in the Jesus Movement, He was also doing on the North Shore.”

Bill began to send away for Chuck’s teaching tapes. He began listening to them as he worked in his surfboard shaping room. His mind had been so messed up by the events of his life, his thoughts were so evil and perverse, there was so much bitterness and anger, that he wanted to totally immerse himself in the teaching of God’s Word. “I definitely needed a brain wash,” he says. “I needed my mind to be cleansed. I wasn’t thinking about going into the ministry. I was listening for the sake of survival.” As he accumulated Chuck’s teaching tapes, Bill began a small lending library in his home. In this setting the Lord began to train him up for the ministry.

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