Description

Is there an overlap between the art of preaching and the skill of acting?

This is something that I have wondered about for a long time.  Having spent time on only a few acting stages - not the lease of which earned me a college best actor award at my alma mater for playing a young man with elephant ears - but I digress?   

Is preaching performative? Yes, in some ways. Is preaching the same as acting? No, of course not, but the overlap and where that line is fascinating and what preachers can learn from great actors is super practical. 

In my conversation with Tanner Kalina today we dig in to these very questions and might even have discovered some answers!  Check it out!

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Tanner Kalina is a Catholic evangelist living with his wife, Alli, in northern Colorado. They enjoy camping, snowboarding, and living life on mission together.

Using his experience as a professional comedian and actor, Tanner travels all across the United States to share the Gospel. He relates to audiences through humor, high levels of energy, and an egregious amount of research.

His online videos have accumulated millions of views, and he’s had the opportunity to create additional video resources with Ascension Presents, Ascension Press, EWTN, FOCUS, Life Teen, YDisciple, and others.

Alongside two of his best friends, he is a Co-Founder of the Saints Alive Podcast on Hallow, which inspires hundreds of thousands of families all across the world to chase holiness. His debut book, Aching for Greatness, is out now wherever you get your books, and he’s in works on his second book.

Check out Tanner’s Website: www.tannerkalina.com

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list.  

Description

To celebrate 100 episodes I am featuring and discussing seven different messages from listeners of the Better Preach Podcast. Thanks to each of the following for their wonderful contribution!

Karl Hendrickson - Teacher, School Administrator and Community formation teacher

www.saintagnesschool.org

Megan Copeland - Podcaster and Catholic Speaker

https://www.hisbelovedcatholic.com

Sr. Nicole - Religious Sister with Salesian Sisters of St John Bosco

https://www.salesiansisters.org

Chris Hurtubise - Director of Evangelization and Missionary Discipleship with the Diocese of Superior

https://catholicdos.org/people/chris-hurtubise

Nikki - Canadian Catholic Coach

https://www.instagram.com/canadiancatholiccoach/

Nick Longo - Youth Minister and founder of SENT Parish

https://sentparish.com

Colleen Vermeulen - Director of Mission with Catholic Biblical School Ministry

https://catholicbiblicalschool.org

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list. 

Description

I want to hear from you! Would you be willing to record a voice-text (90 sec or less) and send it to me? If so, here are the four questions I’d like you to answer!

1) Name
2) Ministry / Role (if applicable)
3) How has the podcast supported you as a teacher/preacher?
4) What was one of your favorite episodes and why? or Favorite takeaway from of the episodes?

If interested - go to this link:

www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

and send me an email through the CONTACT FORM on the middle of the page and use the subject line: VOICE TEXT.

I’ll send you the details from there!

Again, don’t forget I am shooting to have these by end of day, Friday June 6th, 2025. And while I can’t wait to hear your comments I will be selecting a handful to share on the show for episode 100!

Please reach out to with any questions!

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list. 

Description

  Are you Like me? I always watch TV shows and movies at home with captions on. It's one of the reasons I don't want to go to the movie theater. Because I can't do the captions. I don't know if I'm getting old or what it is, but it's just so much better with the captions .

I can follow every little thing that's said, and I feel like I'm understanding what's going on much better, because I can hear it and I can read it. That's kind of the idea that I'm tapping into today. There's this psychological theory called the “dual coding theory. It says that we store information in two ways, words and images.

And if you put them together, there's a much better likelihood that you'll remember the idea. Words connected to images.

Most people are running away from slides. I think you have an opportunity to make incredible slides that can really reinforce the big ideas. From your talk

It's really helped me to communicate ideas better using slides sparingly, but strategically. So I wanna share three principles that really help guide me in that during this episode:

1) Think Images not Text

2) Think Phrases not Paragraphs

3) Build it Last

Tools

For designing slides: canva.com

For finding great free images: unsplash.com

Caravaggio’s “The Call of Matthew” - https://www.caravaggio.org/the-calling-of-saint-matthew.jsp#google_vignette

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list. 

Description

 I don't know if you know this, but Father Mike Schmitz is a huge fan of Superman, but in my conversation today, you get the really strong impression that he's got a lot more in common with the everyday man, just you and me and the kinds of things that we struggle with. And he shared just humbly and honestly about some of his speaking missteps and struggles and the questions that he has around preaching.

It gives us this beautiful window into the man, the disciple that's, you know, behind the crazy number of views on YouTube and downloads on podcast apps. And by doing so, he gives us each permission to be real with each other and with the Lord, and to name those struggles in our spiritual life.

That we might normally, you know, keep under wraps, but when we share it, it really does shed light on our own lives and the lives that we're in community with. This was a fantastic conversation. I'm so excited for you to hear it.
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Father Mike Schmitz is the Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry for the Diocese of Duluth, as well as the chaplain for the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He has preached to thousands locally and nationally, and is the host of the widely popular Podcasts Bible in a year, and the Catechism in a year, produced by Ascension. Father Mike also offers weekly homilies on iTunes, hallow, and bulldog catholic.org, and weekly videos viewed by millions on YouTube through Ascension presents.

Connect with Fr. Mike and learn more about his mission in campus ministry at University of Minnesota-Duluth here: www.bulldogcatholic.org

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list.  

Description

One of my favorite questions to ask anyone that I'm interviewing on this podcast is first or worst, I want to hear a story about their first talk or their worst talk. And this is probably the one shot. This is the one shot that I've got on. Better preach to comment on a Pope's first homily, like as a pope, not his very first homily.

But anyway, Pope Leo, Pope Leo the 14th, Hauss Popham, we've got a Pope from America. He comes out swinging and I'm so excited to share a little bit about. Uh, this homily that he preached, uh, to the Cardinals.

I decided to do this episode for two reasons. One, I didn't wanna miss out on discussing the first Pope born in the us. Lots of ink and airways have been spilled and spoken into about this historic moment in the church, and I wanted to share a few of my thoughts, but I wanted to make sure that we kind of aimed those thoughts, uh, in a quintessentially better preach direction, which is to say, you know, let's talk shop about the Pope's preaching.

Link to text of Homily: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263981/full-text-pope-leo-xiv-s-homily-at-mass-with-the-cardinal-electors-in-the-sistine-chapel

Link to video of Homily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYhfqwFaHTc

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list. 

Description

Alliteration is like a specialized tool that can unlock understanding and retention for the people who are listening to your talks. And those are two things that we want to make sure our talks are always aiming at.

Are people picking up? We're laying down and are they walking away with something that can change their lives? Alliteration, I think, can help us do both of those things.

And today I'm gonna cover the when, the why, and the how of using alliteration in your talks.

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list. 

Description

In the wake of the news this week of Pope Francis’ death, I immediately wondered what we could do here at Better Preach to honor his legacy, teaching and example - particularly around Preaching.  For a while I wanted to do a dive into his first major letter to the Church, the Joy of the Gospel, from 2013, and look closely at his lengthy section in that document on homiletics.  And thanks to Fr. Craig Vasek, who joined me way back in the beginning on episode 2 of Better Preach, he agreed to join me again at the last minute here to look back at Pope Francis’ longest magisterial teaching on Preaching.  

Father Craig Vasek currently serves as pastor of St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Ordained in 2010 as a priest of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, Fr. Vasek is a graduate of the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City, having obtained a Licentiate of Sacred Theology in 2011.  Father Vasek has worked extensively with the Missionaries of Charity of Saint Teresa of Calcutta in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. He has produced works on the topics of Scripture and the Spiritual Life, and served as Specialist for the National Eucharist Revival with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Check out Fr. Vasek’s homilies here on: 

Podbean: https://stbernards.podbean.com

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6mwAvHPBm7c0pjGYUZxWEd

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list.  

Description

Every once in a while you come across a new perspective, fresh eyes, on an age old challenge > and it breaks through lots of baggage and pre-conceived notions.  And this podcast in the grand sense is about addressing the age old challenge of reaching everyday Catholics in the pews with the Gospel.  

Kristin Bird helped me see this perennial challenge with fresh eyes.  And she conceives of this challenge and talks about it in a way that is so helpful and accessible.    Stick around..this is a good one folks!

Kristin Bird is a wife, mother, disciple of Jesus, and an on fire Catholic.  She serves as the Executive Director of Burning Hearts Disciples and is a popular speaker and consultant with a long history of helping Catholic parishes and schools facilitate deeper discipleship and conversion.  Kristin and her husband Tony live in Oshkosh, WI with their three teenage children. When she gets out from behind the computer screen, you can usually find her quoting movies with her husband, laughing at bad puns with her children or with her nose in a book.

Connect with Kristin’s apostolate “Burning Hearts Disciples” at www.burningheartsdisciples.org

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list.  

Description

 In this episode I discuss the reasons why we are afraid of the PAUSE in our talks and three reasons why your next talk needs the PAUSE.

Links

For more information about the Better Preach Podcast visit: www.ryanohara.org/betterpreach

Better Preach Podcast is now on YouTube. Here’s a link to the channel.

Check out Ryan’s FREE course on “sharing your faith as a Catholic.”

Follow Ryan on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook

Join the Better Preach email list.