say? I didn't say yes because I suddenly decided I wanted to go to church. God drew me to Himself. After that Sunday, we never missed a Sunday service or a mid-week service.
By November of 1992, I was on a bus full of church "guys" headed to a Calvary Chapel Men's Conference at Anaheim Stadium, when I spilled all my questions and my "...but's" and got answers that made me realize there was really no good reason not to accept Christ as my Savior. Every question I asked was met with a logical response that brought me back to God's merciful love that sent His Son to die a miserable death on a cross...for me. Salvation meant a lot of things to me, but the most unique one was that colors were different, more vibrant. An actual physical, outward expression that God allowed me to see as confirmation of Him.
About six months after I became a believer, our Pastor challenged me to teach two Wednesday night mid week services on a subject I had become passionate about. The debate of Creation versus Evolution. Our son was in Jr. High at the time and I was appalled at the misinformation contained in his science textbooks, so I began digging. Eventually, my son got me in to his science class as a guest speaker (covert, at that).
Over the course of my life as a Christian, I have been called upon to teach, lead Bible studies and council at church camps and have had many question posed to me and been put in many challenging situations, for which I felt ill equipped. Early on when I was asked to teach, I challenged the Lord. I said I will always be available to be used by You, God, but I can't do it alone. I'm not qualified, I'm not smart enough and I'm certainly not an eloquent speaker. God accepted my challenge...or perhaps it was actually me who accepted His, but non the less, here we are. Blessing after blessing flows out of every opportunity.
This website is the product of a lot of people asking me a lot of questions over the years. I have received lot of encouragement that these writings have been a blessing and have often been used as a tool to converse with non-believers. As you will see, I don't do short, canned answers, but I believe that knowledge and understanding of God and the Bible is key to a strong faith. The Bible says that as believers we should always have an answer for the hope that we have. It is my hope that you will enjoy reading these writings and will be challenged to dig on your own for answers. We are publishing this website (my wife's the techno genius behind it) with only a smattering of the writings and will continue to edit and post more as time goes on.
You can read more about my journey in The Sawdust Trail, my newest article here on the website.
Blessings,
CB
For God so loved the world...
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My name is Chris Bonta. Essentially, I'm a guy who lived 35 years of his life believing that if you were basically a good person, you'd probably go to heaven. It was August of 1992 and my best friend (since 5th grade) and his wife invited us to Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara one Sunday and to my wife's surprise, I said yes. She was raised in a Christian home and had tried to drag me to the Baptist church many times. What can I
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