LIVING FULL POWER

Ern Brake didn’t simply ignore God—he ridiculed Him.

“I wasn’t unsure about God—I was sure He didn’t exist,” Ern says of his Halifax teenage years. “I used to say praying to God was like praying to Bugs Bunny.” Raised in a nominally Catholic home, he called himself a “Catholic atheist.” Church felt empty. By sixteen, he had left completely. His heroes were rock stars and scientists, not prophets or pastors.

Then he met Nicole.

During a study session at Dalhousie University, she asked him, “What turns you on?”

His joking reply—“Hollywood and promiscuity”—didn’t faze her.

She said, “God.”

He tried to dismantle her faith. She responded with kindness, intelligence, and calm confidence. She invited him to a Christian party, and there Ern found himself surrounded by friendly believers and a bowl of chips—along with twenty Christians debating him about God, the soul, and a mystical hellfire. One person quoted John 10:10: “I am come that they might have life… more abundantly.”

“That line grabbed me,” Ern says. “Abundant life—that’s what I longed for.”

A few months later, he decided to “experiment” with prayer. It began with a hesitant, “God, if You’re there, show me.” At first, nothing. Then came what he called “coincidences”: a free taxi ride on a cold night, a calming song on the radio after a prayer, small kindnesses at just the right moment.

The turning point came in the Student Union Building. He prayed, “Let there be a Christian book table downstairs if You’re real.”

There were two.

“Too improbable,” he thought. “How many coincidences before I stop calling them coincidences?”

That day, Ern became a theist—open to the possibility that God existed.

Still searching, he turned on the TV on Sunday mornings. Most preachers seemed manipulative—except one: It Is Written.

“No gimmicks,” he says. “Just calm, reasoned teaching.”

He ordered a book. Soon after, an evangelist knocked on his door. So began Bible studies. Ern brought his toughest questions; the pastor answered with Scripture and challenged him to “taste and see” for 30 days. Ern accepted. “I tasted. I saw. And I never looked back.”

Convicted about the Sabbath, Ern left a lucrative job as a train porter and enrolled at Canadian Union College (now Burman University). He became a pastor—blending logic, story, evidence, and Scripture. His sermons helped skeptics find clarity and discouraged people find hope.

Five years later, while at Andrews University, a logic flaw in a letter to his atheist brother triggered a faith crisis. “What if it’s all a lie?” he wondered. Instead of abandoning faith, he dug deeper—studying archaeology, prophecy, and the historical reliability of Scripture. He emerged with a stronger, tested faith and a deeper compassion for seekers. “God’s truth doesn’t fear scrutiny,” he says.

As a pastor and later an administrator in British Columbia, Ern saw how health programs created natural bridges to spiritual conversations. This insight birthed The FULL POWER Plan—a science-backed, biblically grounded model helping people find purpose and bodymind vitality. The acronym mirrors Jesus’ ministry, starting with people’s felt needs and leading them toward wholeness.

At 61, Ern retired early to pursue this calling full-time. He wrote The FULL POWER Plan and now trains churches, schools, and communities across Canada and the world. Dr. Hans Diehl, founder of the CHIP program, encouraged him: “I hope your plan carries on what CHIP started.”

Looking back, Ern sees only grace. “God used every influence—Nicole’s courage, a chip bowl conversation, a quiet moment under the trees—to reach me. He never gave up.”

Now Ern invites others to the same journey: “Taste and see. Give God 30 days. He’s more real than you ever imagined.”

You can watch Ern Brake’s full testimony and learn more about The FULL POWER Plan by visiting iiw.ca or watching It Is Written Canada on CTV and YouTube.