Bill Stonebraker
Calvary Chapel Honolulu · Aiea, Hawaii
A North Shore surfboard shaper who began the North Shore Christian Fellowship after his conversion, and has pastored what is now Calvary Chapel Honolulu since. The church owns and operates KLHT radio.
Life
He grew up in Southern California, in and around the Redondo area, and, as his church tells it, “without a consistent father figure. He hardly knew his biological dad, and although he had four stepfathers, none of them were particularly close to him.” In his own words: “As I got a little older, I looked at pictures of my real father, and I noticed that he would always be holding my sister, but never me. And it always hurt.”
He met Danita at seventeen, when she was thirteen; they married at twenty and sixteen. In 1967 the couple moved with their family to Hawaii, where he began a surfboard making business that quickly prospered. They lived on Oahu's North Shore and he shaped boards for a lot of the top surfers in Hawaii. “If the surf was good, he would put a sign on the door of his shop that read, ‘Testing New Equipment,’ and head out to the waves.” He was, by the church's account and his own, empty: “If I were not a Christian now, I'd probably be an alcoholic, possibly dead. My father died of alcoholism, as did my grandfather.”
The conversion came through surfers. A man he had met in the water turned up at his door on the North Shore asking to use his shaping room, spent the day making a board that “looked like a potato chip”, and then asked, “Can I share with you what Christ has done in my life?” Not long after, in Waikiki, he called over a long-haired man carrying a guitar whom a friend had said was a Christian, and asked him what Christ had done.
Learning that Pastor Chuck Smith was coming out to Hawaii, he asked him to come to the North Shore, a meeting the church calls pivotal, “beginning a bond of fellowship with the believers on the North Shore and those at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in California.” In 1975 he went to California for the Shepherd's School, and on returning was invited to be ordained through Calvary Chapel ministries. He thought: “They must see something in me that I don't even see in myself. They trusted me before I trusted myself.” He began pastoring the North Shore Christian Fellowship, meeting on the lawn at Backyards at Sunset Beach.
In 2000 Calvary Chapel Honolulu purchased land and developed a campus in Aiea, dedicated on 16 May 2004. Since the North Shore Christian Fellowship began, more than two dozen Calvary Chapel affiliated churches have started up in Hawaii, many of them directly influenced by his ministry, and the church has sent missionaries to Fiji, India, Nepal, Ethiopia, Mexico, Japan, Poland, Russia, Tahiti, Hungary, Uganda, Cambodia, Australia, China and Vanuatu. It owns and operates KLHT Radio 1040 AM, purchased in 1986, and KLHT Radio 91.5 FM, launched in 2016.
He and Danita have three adult children, Doreen, Naylene and Bud, and multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “Today Pastor Bill continues to do what he loves: teaching the Bible and ministering to the Lord's church.”
Stated as his ministry states it, from Calvary Chapel Honolulu. Nothing here is inferred.
What he teaches
Scriptural authority. We believe that the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, fully inspired without error in the original manuscripts, and the infallible rule of faith and practice. The Word of God is the foundation upon which this church operates and is the basis for which this church is governed. We believe that the Word of God supercedes any earthly law that is contrary to the Holy Scriptures. We believe that the King James Version of the Bible is the most accurate translation from the original ancient text. It is from this translation that we establish our doctrine and Statement of Faith. (Isaiah 28:13; Nehemiah 8:8; John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Peter 1:23-25; 2 Peter 1:21)
The Trinity. We believe that there is one living and true GOD, eternally existing in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory; that this triune God created all, upholds all, and governs all things. (Genesis 1:1; Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; John 10:30; Hebrews 9:14)
God. We believe in the person of God the Father, an Infinite, personal Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, power and love; that He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of men; that He hears and answers prayer; and that He saves from sin and death all those who come to Him through Jesus Christ. (Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalms 90:2; Psalms 102:27; John 4:24; 1 Timothy 1:17; Titus 1:3)
Jesus Christ. We believe in the person of Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit. We believe in His virgin birth, sinless life, miracles and teachings, his substitutionary atoning death, bodily resurrection, ascension into heaven, perpetual intercession for His people and personal, visible return to earth. (Isaiah 7:14; Micah 5:2; Matthew 1:23; Mark 16:19; Luke 1:34-35; John 1:1-2; John 8:58; John 11:25; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; Hebrews 1:8; 1 John 1:2; Revelation 1:8)
The Holy Spirit. We believe in the person of the Holy Spirit, Who came forth from the Father and Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and to regenerate, sanctify and empower for ministry all who believe in Christ. (Acts 1:8; 2 Corinthians 3:18; John 16:8-11; Romans 15:13, 16; Hebrews 9:14)
Indwelling. We believe the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is an abiding helper, teacher, and guide. (John 14:16-17, 16:8-11)
Spiritual gifts. We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit and in the exercise of all Biblical gifts of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 14)
Sin. We believe that all people are sinners by nature and, therefore, are under condemnation; that God regenerates based upon faith by the Holy Spirit, those who repent of their sins and confess Jesus Christ as Lord. (Acts 8:15-17; Titus 3:5)
The Church. We believe in the universal church, the living spiritual body, of which Christ is the head and all who are born again are members. (1 Corinthians 12:12-13; Ephesians 4:15-16)
Baptism and communion. We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ committed two ordinances to the church: (a) full immersion water baptism, and (b) the Lord's Supper. (Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
Laying on of hands. We believe also in the laying on of hands for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the ordination of pastors, elders, and deacons, and for the receiving of the perpetuity of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 6:6, 8:17; 1 Timothy 4:14)
The rapture. We believe in the Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church where all believers will meet the Lord in the air and be taken out of this world prior to the Tribulation that will come upon the earth. (Matthew 24:29-31; Luke 21:36; Romans 1:18, 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:9; 2 Peter 2:7-9; Revelation 5:7-10)
Second coming. We believe in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ which is His personal, visible return to earth and the establishment of His millennial kingdom, in the resurrection of the body, the final judgment and eternal blessing of the righteous and endless suffering of the wicked. (Matthew 16:27; Acts 1:11)
Heaven and hell. We believe in a literal Heaven and a literal Hell and that all those who place their faith, hope and trust in Jesus Christ will spend eternity in Heaven with the Lord, while those who reject Jesus' free gift of salvation will spend eternity separated from the Lord. (Matthew 5:3, 25:31-34)
The apostles' creed. We believe in what is termed “the apostles' creed” as embodying the fundamental facts of the Christian faith.
Sanctity of marriage. We believe that, according to the Word of God, marriage is exclusively the legal union of one genetic male and one genetic female evidenced by a marriage ceremony. We also believe that legitimate biblical sexual relations are exercised solely within such a marriage. Hence, sexual activities such as, but not limited to, adultery, fornication, pre-marital sex, incest, polygamy, homosexuality, bisexuality, prostitution, pedophilia and bestiality as well as conduct such as transgenderism and cross-dressing, are all inconsistent with the teachings of the Bible and the Church. Further, lascivious behavior, the creation, viewing and/or distribution of pornography, human trafficking and efforts to alter one's physical gender or gender-related appearance are incompatible with a true biblical witness which we believe every person is called to live. (Genesis 2:24; I Corinthians 5:11; 6:9; 6:18-20; 7:1-3; 7:8-9; Romans 1:18-32)
Sexual orientation. We believe in the biblical Genesis creation account and God as the Creator. We believe that God created man and that He created them male and female. As such He created them different so as to complement each other. God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason we hold homosexuality, and all other “sexual preferences” or “orientations” as unnatural, sinful, and unacceptable to God. Accordingly, this ministry will not perform any marriage ceremonies except between one truly genetically male and female; we will expressly not perform or otherwise recognize or honor any other relationship between persons of the same sex or more than two persons. We will not condone or recognize such same-sex “marriages”, civil unions, or domestic partnerships regardless of state laws that provide for recognition of such unions. (I Corinthians 6:9-11; I Timothy 1:9-11)
Statement of Faith, Calvary Chapel Honolulu. Quoted, not summarised. This page applies no label to Bill Stonebraker that he has not used of himself.
Teaching archive
The church's own archive of teaching.
The church's own store.
Radio
KLHT Radio · KLHT 1040 AM, purchased in 1986, and KLHT 91.5 FM, launched in 2016, owned and operated by the church. “The stations plays the finest Bible teaching and praise/worship music 24 hours a day.”
Books
Where to find him
- A portrait. The church publishes no media or press page offering one.
- The year the North Shore Christian Fellowship began, and the year it became Calvary Chapel Honolulu. The account gives 1975 for the Shepherd's School and the ordination that followed, and 2000 and 2004 for the Aiea campus, and does not date either beginning.
- Any book.
- A closing parenthesis. The reference list on the sanctity of marriage article runs “(Genesis 2:24; ... Romans 1:18-32” and is never closed on the church's own page. The list is reproduced as it stands rather than tidied.
Sources for this page are closed to Calvary Chapel Honolulu and the Calvary Chapel Association.