Will Braun
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Articles by Will Braun
Time to revamp Hydro’s water licence
On Sept. 1, Manitoba Hydro’s 50-year licence to divert 85 per cent of the flow of the second largest river in the province and flood the fourth largest lake expired. How different will the next 50 years of the Churchill River Diversion look? The northern project is a cornerstone of the engineering wonder that provides Manitoba with inexpensive and reliable electricity.
Awkward and Amazing
Of the 200 or so congregations in Mennonite Church Canada, 40 are made up predominantly of people who are not Euro-Canadian and who use 16 languages other than English and German in regular worship. We call these newcomer and/or diaspora churches. Some include people who immigrated to Canada decades ago, and/or the kids of those people—so they are not all new to Canada. Then there are churches that include a mix of cultures. And others that are mostly white. That’s our beautiful family.
Raisin Cakes in a Desert of Doubt and Longing
“I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” These were God’s words to Hosea’s wife and the people of God she symbolized. I hope it is also God’s message for Mennonite Church Canada today. God had commanded Hosea to marry a specific woman: “Go love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as the Lord loves the people of Israel though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.” I love raisin cakes too.
Let the Dark Come Upon Me
I was about 14 when John Peterson prophesied over me. Peterson was a soft-spoken, itinerant American youth leader. He was slight of frame, middle-aged, a decent musician and a prophet, I guess. I was a Manitoba farm kid dabbling in the charismatic—partly intrigued, partly drawn to the passion of my evangelical city peers, and partly uncomfortable. My friend’s parents would take us to spirited church events from time to time.
Global Anabaptists Address Crisis of Unity
An online storm that threatened to destabilize the largest national Mennonite church in the world has created a test of unity that now extends to the global Anabaptist fellowship. Both Meserete Kristos Church of Ethiopia—the national church in question—and Mennonite World Conference now face the delicate work of fostering unity in a societal context fraught with polarization and charged by social media.
Is the Main Thing the Main Thing?
In my Mennonite Church Canada wanderings, I keep bumping into the simplest question: Do we believe in God—specifically, God who transforms lives and does immeasurably more than we can imagine? Or do we believe in a set of values, combined with four-part harmony and an occasional array of cheesy casseroles?
Revamping the Giver-Receiver Mission Model
Often in the North American church, the narrative about the Global South is about how we help them. “Our” mission and development organizations are often structured accordingly. We have the money; we make the decisions. The organizations are ours. One Mennonite organization has taken concrete steps to fundamentally up-end that structure and the assumptions beneath it. Actually, they did so in 2004 and now have 20 years of experience following a new way.
Abbot and Professor Examine Anabaptist History
Since 1999, the Bridgefolk movement has brought together peace-minded Catholics and sacramentally minded Mennonites from the U.S. and Canada for an annual gathering.
The Surprise of Simple Listening
When Paul Jenkinson arrived at my house, he had spent 125 days travelling from Nova Scotia to Manitoba. “Two chairs, a small table, a sign and an old man” is how he characterizes his one-man, big-heart, cross-country tour. Jenkinson sets up his “You Are Not Alone, I Will Listen” sign on a sidewalk, in a park or maybe near the entrance of a farmers market. Then he waits for people to stop and talk.
Be Not Ashamed - Canadian Mennonite Magazine
It is one of the most remarkable stories in 500 years of Anabaptism, and Kelbessa Muleta Demena has lived through much of it. His story weaves together the testimony of a young evangelist amid Marxist repression, the most notable case of Anabaptist church growth since the 16th century and current reflections on inclusion, decolonization, and what rapid church growth of an African church means for Canadian Mennonites.
Walking a High Wire
I offer five thoughts on denominational reporting. Independence Readers sometimes think Canadian Mennonite represents the position of the denomination or its official leaders. Not so. CM is independent. No one from the denominational offices is part of production or approval of CM content, apart from writing some columns or articles. Don’t blame them for what we say. That said, approximately 30 per cent of our revenue comes from denominational sources, and they appoint nine of our 12 board members.
Power and Process
Should regional and nationwide gatherings include open mic floor discussion? No Yes Individuals can hog the mic. This can mar the spirit of a gathering. Group discernment can give way to personal agendas. It can exacerbate polarization. It can be really unpleasant and embarrassing. Grandstanding and blowhard-ism are dangers. But we have gifted group facilitators in our pews. They are underutilized. Ground rules can be thoughtfully established and skillfully enforced.
Recap of Gathering 2025
Just over 400 people, representing 129 of 201 Mennonite Church Canada congregations, attended a bustling and lively nationwide Gathering at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate in Kitchener, Ontario, from July 2–5. An additional 149 youth and sponsors met nearby. The focus of the Gathering was intercultural integration, celebrating the gifts that each culture offers.
The Truth Between
Origin Story I: 500 Years On January 21, 1525, several courageous men baptized each other in Zurich, Switzerland. This marked the beginning of the Anabaptist movement. They started something that spread and has brought spiritual enrichment to many. This perspective, rooted in fact, is clear, simple and easy to communicate. It highlights the work of the Spirit in a critical moment and provides focus for anniversaries, which are valuable.
Iconoclastic Humility
We rarely have guests who eagerly discuss the veneration of icons, but recently our family did. The delightful 28-year-old Latvian-born man who recently spent two weeks with us as part of a small farm volunteer program had returned to the Orthodox faith of his youth and spoke freely about it. I invited him to do a presentation on Orthodox history for our homeschooled teens. He jumped at the chance.
I don’t have a smartphone. Never have. I’ve shied away from the topic for years, which people probably appreciate, but it does offer a perspective I want to share. My lack of smartphone does not make me better than others. I know full-throttle phone addicts who are more present, patient and prayerful than me. Pope Francis apparently had 50 million Twitter followers. But, while my status does not confer moral superiority, it does give me a rare viewpoint.
Making the Most of My Days
Helen Rempel, 99, grew up three miles from Herschel, Saskatchewan, where she lived until attending Rosthern Junior College. She taught school in Saskatchewan and Winnipeg. Helen and her husband, Art, who died in 2006, had five daughters. They served with Commission on Overseas Mission in Taiwan for three years. Helen served as secretary for the Conference of Mennonites in Canada and has been a member of Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg since 1952. What is your earliest church memory?
South Sudan crisis concerns Edmonton church
Members of Edmonton South Sudanese Mennonite Church are deeply concerned about family and friends in South Sudan and the surrounding countries to which many have fled as hunger and turmoil grip the region. South Sudan is the newest nation state in the world—it came into being in 2011 after decades of war and hundreds of thousands of deaths—and one of the poorest, ranking 192 out of 193 countries on the UN Human Development Index.
MC Alberta annual session recap
Forty-six delegates representing all 11 Mennonite Church Alberta congregations gathered in Calgary, along with various other guests, for annual delegate sessions and related events on March 14–16. The events, graciously hosted by Foothills Mennonite Church adults and youth, focused in part on marking 500 years of Anabaptism, doing so with thoughtfulness and nuance (see below).
MC Manitoba annual gathering recap
One hundred delegates representing 31 of the 40 Mennonite Church Manitoba congregations attended the MCM annual gathering at Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach on February 28 and March 1. An additional 55 non-delegates registered for the event. The gathering was an opportunity to connect and build up the church, with no major decisions facing delegates.
Pastoral letter following federal election
Dear Pastors, Leaders, and Members of our Church Family, Grace and peace to you in the name of our risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. In these days following the election, when some are relieved and others are disappointed—some joyful, others deeply frustrated—we are called to walk in ways that exude grace, humility and hospitality. We are invited to be open to possibilities that have not yet been considered.
Small, hurting world
Not long after M23 rebels captured the city of Bukavu in eastern DRC in February, my colleague Susan Fish spoke with a Mennonite pastor and doctor in Bukavu (article here). On the day after government forces in South Sudan placed the main opposition leader under house arrest last week, creating massive uncertainty in an already uncertain country, I spoke with Pastor Reuben Tut of Edmonton South Sudanese Mennonite Church (that article is yet to come).
Témoignage d’un pasteur en pleine violence en RDC
Parlant depuis son domicile à Bukavu, en République Démocratique du Congo (RDC), le 23 février, Josué Seleman a raconté des troubles dans la ville de Bukavu depuis l’entrée des rebelles paramilitaires M-23 dans la ville le 14 février, trois semaines après avoir capturé la ville de Goma dans l’est du pays. Seleman est médecin et aussi le pasteur d’une église de la Communauté des Églises des Frères Mennonites au Congo, le plus grand groupe Mennonite de la RDC, avec presque 100,000 membres.
The immeasurable power of surrender
When David Fitch speaks about church and power, his starting point is not any big thoughts from the seminary classrooms he’s so familiar with or even his experience as pastor of a majority-Black church. It’s the “cesspool” of the Chicago financial sector, where he spent 10 years as a dangerously successful broker and financial manager. He begins with his own stark experience of how the power of money and influence grabbed hold of his soul and how the power of God saved him from that grasp.
Control issues - Canadian Mennonite Magazine
What is more countercultural than submission? In a time of unalienable rights and unfettered individuality, voluntary abdication of power, rights or personal expression is relatively unthinkable. These norms seep into church despite the fact that submitting, yielding and weakness are Gospel bedrock. The central image of our faith is our Saviour, not with a fist raised defiantly but arms spread on a cross, nailed there by overlording oppressors.
A few years back, I invited a new acquaintance to help with a hayloft restoration project. He was handy and between jobs. As we worked with old wood, we talked about our experiences of church. He had done church work for most of two decades. At one point, a light began to dawn. I stopped and asked something like, “You’ve never been burned by the church, have you?” I had assumed that someone with as much experience as him would have been tossed over the rail in some way, at some point. He hadn’t.
Does the Carver model suit Mennonites?
A retired veteran of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) management put it bluntly (off-record): “MCC is not a priesthood of all believers.” I don’t know if any Mennonite organizations are. Most, like this magazine, are hierarchies, and many use some version of the Carver model of governance. While such matters may be boring for many readers, this technical, behind-the-scenes stuff affects lives.
Spirit over algorithm: An invitation
If you worry that digitization is corroding your soul, or if you just don’t know how to square the digital demands of our era with the circle of life you want to live in, we invite you to undertake some form of de-digitized experiment for Lent. Starting March 5, cut screens back in some way and fill the gap with something holy. Go all-out, think big, make it hurt. Or dabble without shame because heaven and earth overflow with grace. Be still. Be bored.
Algorithm override
For once, I don’t actually have much to say, so I heartily encourage you put down your device (not in your pocket) or walk away from your computer. Go outside. Look out the window. Take a breath. Be still and know. Pray. Rest. Wait. Seriously. (Then return to the links below, especially the first one; it’s really good.
An intense editorial in three parts
Part I. Divine embrace On pages 22-23, Melody Steinman writes about her relationships with people with developmental disabilities. With tenderness and vulnerability, she shares about a warm, though awkward, human embrace and a profound, transformative divine embrace. Melody’s stories of friendship, vocation and holy belonging touch the heart of Christianity. This is a gift. The article is an introduction to Melody’s five-part series, which is part of our inaugural round of MennoCreative residencies.
MCC investigation finds harassment by senior personnel
An investigation commissioned by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in response to complaints put forward by John Clarke and Anicka Fast, who were abruptly terminated in August 2023, found that “MCC processes and some decision making by senior personnel as a whole … is reasonably understood to fall within the threshold of harassment as defined by MCC’s Workplace Harassment and Violence Policy.” The report was conducted by Edmonton-based Veritas Solutions, which describes itself as “the...
MCEC reduces salary costs by 17 percent
Due to ongoing budgetary pressure, Mennonite Church Eastern Canada is making a 17-percent reduction in salary costs for the 2025–26 budget year. The leadership have made the difficult decision to lay off five staff. A November 20 open letter to MCEC churches from Ann L.
The ordinary dark
Dawn comes slowly. There is no rush in it. Often—not always—the hour is still and quiet when the dark so gradually abates in the east. The dawn comes slowly. As it must. We can but wait. I have not always been an earlier riser, but since Cinnamon the milk cow moved into the barn on our micro-farm in July, I have usually been out the door before dawn. It’s a gift, though one that requires an investment.
A donkey ride to Texas
“This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice …” These words came to me in the quiet, early hours of November 6. The day after. Before I turned to any news. The night before, I waited until 8:30, then 8:45 pm, to check the election news the world was hanging on. I was itching for info, but I can get too wrapped up in politics, so I held back, leaving the radio off as I did dishes while my son made cookies. The news, when it came, confirmed what I had expected. I did not stay up late to watch.
Praying with their feet
October 17, 2024 | News Madalene Arias | Peace demonstrators in Toronto on October 5. Photo by Madalene Arias. On the afternoon of Saturday, October 5, approximately 60 people gathered in the shade of Holy Trinity Church in Toronto to support the Palestinian Youth Movement one year into the Gaza war. Organizations represented at the gathering included Christians for a Free Palestine, Christians for Just Peace, Bathurst United Church and Mennonite Action.
MCC accused of inadequate response to sexual assault allegation in Mozambique
“I wanted to help people gain access to water,” Katie Moyer says of her motivation for taking an assignment with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Mozambique in 2016. It was her first job after earning an engineering degree from Messiah University in Pennsylvania, her home state. During her four years with MCC, Moyer worked on seven sand dams, seconded by MCC to Conselho Cristão de Moçambique (Christian Council of Mozambique—CCM) in the city of Tete. She loved the work.
On the death of Grand Chief Cathy Merrick
September 11, 2024 | News Will Braun | Singer Bruce Cockburn and the late Cathy Merrick, Chief of Pimicikamak at the time of the photo, at the opening of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg in 2014. Photo by Will Braun. Last Friday, Cathy Merrick, Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, collapsed while speaking to reporters outside the Law Courts building in Winnipeg. She was taken to hospital but did not survive. She was 62.
Call for prayer amid violence in Burkina Faso
September 5, 2024 | News Siaka Traore | Siaka Traoré, a church leader in Burkina Faso. MWC photo by Christian Argha Aditya. The following update and prayer request was sent by Siaka Traoré to Tany Warkentin of Mennonite Church Canada on August 30. Traoré is the Mennonite World Conference regional representative for Central and West Africa as well as a long-time church leader in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is going through a dark period in this second half of August.
Spelling bees and air shows
September 4, 2024 | News Susan Fish | The Canadian Forces Snowbirds. Photo: Master Sgt. Becky Vanshur/Released, U.S. Air National Guard For me, Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition is a touchpoint, reminding me of my childhood, and a sign that summer is coming to an end. When I was a child, my parents, siblings and I would come to the CNE, as we called it, several times during its three-week season.
I don’t believe in the Olympic Dream
A fourth-place rant and a tribute to Olympic agnostics August 6, 2024 | News Will Braun | I like watching the Olympics, but I see only overblown virtuism and commercialized pretense in the notion that the games bring together the global village in a glow of equality and peace that will somehow contribute to the betterment of humanity.
Involuntary: Behind the scenes
Our recent article, “Involuntary: Terminated MCC workers call for accountability and change” (posted online on June 20 and appearing in our July print issue), is a particularly sensitive and important piece. We believe some readers may value hearing how the story came about and how we make decisions about a story like that.
A mother's 'yes'
Part I: For Junia Grace, 2017 I don’t like to write sermons. I am, at best, an unlikely preacher in our small Mennonite church. I languished through theology courses in college, earning mostly high C’s. I feel easily overwhelmed when researching scripture, and I have no knowledge whatsoever of Greek or Hebrew. I’m constantly sending rough drafts to my pastor friends to ensure that my words from behind the oak pulpit aren’t inadvertently heretical.
Jewish perspectives
An interview with Gustavo Zentner By Will Braun Gustavo Zentner will never forget visiting areas attacked by Hamas. “We walked into the homes where you can still smell the smell of burned flesh,” he recalled.
Pipeline proposed for Kitimat, B.C. would ferry bitumen to Asia
Surrounded by leaning stacks of paper related to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, Russell Ross Jr. says he doesn’t think the $6-billion project will ever be built. The Haisla First Nation councillor isn’t blowing bravado either; he’s offering a considered assessment — the same assessment I heard from half a dozen Indigenous leaders along the B.C. portion of the planned pipeline route.
Attending to war
The following is a string of messages received by a reader of Canadian Mennonite who worked in Israel-Palestine. She received the messages on October 30 from a friend in Gaza who lost 19 family members in the bombing two days before. The person has two pre-school sons and is now sheltering in a UN school. Names are withheld for security reasons. Used with permission. I’m really so worry See die all the time They all the time do bombing I’m not sleep Worry What I do? I’m not see news say for stop war.
Opinion: Up close with Bernier on the campaign trail
Tweet Print Email Save to Read Later A BIG-CITY francophone from the most secular province in Canada is winning the political hearts of a surprising number of Mennonites in rural southern Manitoba, including some of my good neighbours. Read this article for free: Email Address: Password: I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement. Already have an account?
‘We have no safe area under the sky’
For much of my life I associated Ethiopia with famine. I’m just old enough to recall the searing scenes from Ethiopia in the mid-1980s: windswept, dull-beige landscapes; skeletal cattle; distended bellies; flies; people crowding trucks laden with sacks of food; and charitable rock concerts.
Some Principles for White Anti-Racist Work
Those of us who are white sometimes try to change what we’re doing without changing our being, and we wonder why that doesn’t work so well. Doing anti-racist work changes how and who we are as white folks, especially if we attend to what we know and how we know it. Knowing is often the (unattended) transit point toward transformation. Here, then, are a few principles for white anti-racist being, knowing, and doing, distilled from reflections on the work of anti-racist communities. 1.
Firing Cherry a missed opportunity
I found Don Cherry’s poppy rant simple-minded and small-hearted, but firing him was a missed opportunity. His abrupt termination will stoke anger among the millions who love him and fuel self-righteousness among the millions who love to hate him. The firing doubles down on divisiveness. Dismissing, cancelling and calling out the Don Cherrys of our world sends two messages: one of tolerance and inclusion; the other of intolerance and exclusion. Has Cherry Nation suddenly been won over?
Call for Pitches: Geez 52, Poetics of Resistance
Call for Pitches: Geez 52, Poetics of Resistance by Aiden Enns | Published 19th December 2018 in Social Change U.S. cruise missile protest, Toronto, 1983 Credit: Avard Woolaver (link below) Deadline: January 13, 2019 (may be extended, submission details below) This is a call for submissions of poetry and art, and for pitches for essays about poetry, poetics, and social change.
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