Better Preach

Description

I want to give you simple and practical tips to ensure, every time you speak to Catholic audiences, that you absolutely have something to say; something worth listening to and acting on. In this episode I will share four things that need to be true of the words you use when you speak about the Catholic faith.

Download PDF Overview of Episode 59: How to Have Something to Say

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

God’s Approval, Human Applause, Abundant Affirmation.  I’d be lying if I said these three things DIDN’T factor in deeply to my motivation and experience as a Catholic Speaker over the years.   You want to do an excellent job, that brings God honor, meets the expectations of your boss or whoever has hired you, and you want it to be received well by everybody listening.  

But is that approval, applause, affirmation, solid ground to stand as the motivation and criteria for succuss for people called to preach and teach the Gospel?  

No, it’s not.   

And today in my conversation with Brad Pierron we go right at this question.  And his view and perspective on it was as well articulated as I’ve ever come across. His outlook on this will comfort *and* convict! So look out my friends, we’ve got a hot one today!

Brad Pierron is the Missionary Program Director at Damascus in Centerburg, OH, where he has served since its inception seven year ago. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University and is currently pursuing a master's degree in business administration through Franciscan University of Steubenville. In addition to his service with Damascus, Brad serves as a co-host for Beyond Damascus – a national Catholic radio show and podcast, and he speaks to thousands every year. 

As a missionary formator, he is passionate about bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to life in the Church today, and as a product of Southern Ohio, his ideal day would include a sporting event, a truck bed, and a large glass of sweet tea. He and his lovely wife, Nina, were married in August of 2020, are expecting their first child in January, and currently reside in Lewis Center, OH.

Here’s the link to Damascus where Brad serves, leads, and teaches.

Here’s a link to the Beyond Damascus Podcast 

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

“Always be ready to give a reason for your hope.” 1 Peter 3:15.   If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone remind me of this passage, I’d be well really rich, but if I had to pay back every dollar for every time someone explained to me an ‘easy way to always be ready’, well I’d still be rich. :) 

This is one of those verses that Catholic speakers, priests, Catechists like to throw around WITHOUT also equipping us to make it a reality in our lives.  

Well today is that day, my friends!  I want to give you a simple, memorable way to share with others the reason for the hope you have in Christ.  Certainly there are theological and catechetical reasons for that hope, right?, but that often opens things up for debate or disagreement. Which is fine and there’s a time and a place for that  But one thing no one can debate, assuming you are being honest, is the simple story of God’s work in your life boiled down into ONE SENTENCE.  

That’s the goal and in this episode I want to propose an exercise that will help you and others develop ONE-SENTENCE TESTIMONIES. 

Download PDF Overview of Episode 57: How and Why to Write a One-Sentence Testimony

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

If we aren’t teaching and preaching the gospel to change lives then what in the world are we doing? Right? But heres the thing, no one would  likely suggest any other goal, but at the same time, also not know how to teach and preach in such a way that actually leads to life change.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not easy, and just saying that’s what you are doing doesn’t make it so, 

In my conversation today with Michael Gormley, aka Gomer, we set our sights on this very thing - how do we actually teach and preach so as to help people, who want to, change their lives.  This conversation was a blast and as we get rolling we jump into the nitty gritty of exactly how this happens. 

Also, a big shout of thanks to Gomer and Ascension who generously offered to also release this interview on one of his podcasts, Every Knee Shall Bow.  It’ll be a bonus episode in that feed this week. Super cool!  I’m so grateful.  

And to that end if you aren’t listening to Every Knee Shall Bow, what are you doing?  For a long time now I think that show has been the pre-eminent place in the podcasting space to discuss everything related to evangelization and catechesis in the Church.  Check it out if you aren’t already following!

Michael Gormley has been leading evangelization and ministry efforts for the past 17 years, both as a full-time parish staff member and as a speaker and consultant for parishes, dioceses, and Catholic campus ministries. He has his Undergraduate Degrees in both Philosophy and Theology, and a Masters in Theology and Christian Ministry, from Franciscan University of Steubenville. He currently serves as the Mission Evangelist for Paradisus Dei, a ministry dedicated to helping men, couples, and families discover the superabundance of God. Michael is also the founder and creative director of LayEvangelist.com, the co-host to two successful Catholic podcasts: Catching Foxes and Every Knee Shall Bow. He is married to his college sweetheart, Shannon, and they have 4 amazing children and get about 3 hours of sleep a night, which is alright by him.

Here’s a link to Gomer’s Website, Lay Evangelist:

And to his two podcasts:  “Every Knee Shall Bow” and “Catching Foxes”

And to his Soundcloud account where he keeps all of his talks.  Check it out!

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

I love checklists and systems; doing it once, writing it down and then putting the plan on repeat. Why keep reinventing the wheel? When the routine needs tweaking, make the edit, update it, and put it back on repeat.

This is especially true for me “Day of” for the talks that I give. I have routines and checklists I follow BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER a talk. Again, this is just my routine. What I hope is that it inspires you to make your own! What do you need “Day of”, at the venue and so on, as a speaker, to be most effective? Be intentional. Decide. The consistency and the extra brain space will pay off!

I’m joined again today by the best occasional co-host I know, Connor Flanagan as we run through the BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER routine for every talk I give.  Hope it blesses you and inspires you to nail down Your Routine!

And if you want to follow along as you listen or review afterwards there’s a PDF download linked in the Show Notes that summarizes what we talked about.  Check it out!

Link to “Presentation Timer” in iOS App Store

Download PDF Overview of Episode 55: My “Day of” Routine for a Talk

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

Giving a great Catholic talk is hard to do. It takes a lot of practice, grace, life experience, confidence, and knowledge to pull it off.  Now try ratcheting up the degree of difficulty a few notches by also addressing difficult and thorny topics, especially hot-button issues today around sexuality, gender, and marriage.    This is a tall task for anyone.  But every once in a while you hear someone speak on difficult topics and they make it look effortless, almost easy, while also packing a punch.  How do they do it?  My guest today, Sarah Swafford is one such speaker.  With deep conviction, boundless energy, and a love for the people she is speaking to, Sarah is the perfect guest to help us learn how to give talks on the most difficult of topics. 

Sarah Swafford is the founder of Emotional Virtue Ministries. She speaks internationally on a variety of topics including faith, relationships, and interior confidence. Engaging audiences of all ages, Sarah shares her message at school assemblies, retreats, rallies, parishes, and conferences around the world including FOCUS and Steubenville Conferences in the United States and Canada.

Sarah is a well-known author on dating and relationships and is cohost of an EWTN series on the same topic. She is also a contributor to Chosen, Ascension’s Confirmation program, and a co-presenter in What We Believe: The Beauty of the Catholic Faith, together with her husband, Dr. Andrew Swafford, and Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio. Dr. Andrew and Sarah Swafford recently wrote Gift and Grit: How Heroic Virtue Can Change Your Life and Relationships.

Sarah resides in Atchison, Kansas with her wonderful husband and their children: Thomas, Fulton, Cate, Kolbe, John Paul, and Avila Faustina.

Check out Sarah’s Website

Here is a link to Sarah’s talk at SEEK 2023

And the link to buy Sarah’s new book: Gift and Grit

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

If you’ve been listening to the Better Preach Podcast, even for just a few episodes, you know that one of my favorite questions to ask is: What is your process for preparing a talk? This one question, actually, is what drove me to start the podcast and to keep going.  I thought - I’d love to know what different speakers do, behind the scenes, to bring great talks to life.  

So, I thought, I’d love to share my process too - again with the help of my favorite trusty occasional co-host, Connor Flanagan.  In this episode we do a deep dive into “my six steps for writing a talk.”

Download PDF Overview of Episode 53: My Six Steps for Writing a Talk

Take a peek at Sample Handwritten Notes from iPad and/or a sample of an Outline or Handout - Dating, It’s Complicated_OL

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

Have you ever wondered what it would be like, as a layperson to go from listening to homilies to giving them?  I know I have. What if you as a ministry leader, professor, and conference speaker were also called to be a Deacon in the Catholic Church? You’ve been giving talks, thousands of them, for many years and now you are giving homilies in a local Church on a weekly basis.  What would that transition be like?  What are the challenges, hiccups, and new lessons to learn?

Well, if you’ve ever wondered what that would be like - you are in for a treat today - actually either way you are in for a treat today, as I sit down with the one and only Deacon Bob Rice to discuss his convictions around teaching and preaching, but also a deep dive on what it’s like to begin giving homilies as a Deacon. 

Bob Rice loves being Catholic. He is a husband, father of seven, permanent deacon for the diocese of Steubenville, and Professor of Catechetics at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He has a PhD in Theology from Liverpool Hope University where he researched Catholic youth and evangelization. Deacon Bob is a highly sought after presenter, author of many books and articles, and the co-host of a popular weekly podcast called They That Hope with Fr. Dave Pivonka, TOR. Bob has recorded numerous CDs (his music can be found on Apple Music, Spotify, and others) and leads worship for over ten thousand people every year, mostly through the Steubenville Adult Conferences. 

Amazon link to the “Heart of the Diaconate” by Dcn James Keating

Connect with Deacon Bob at his website

Check out “They That Hope”, a podcast from Dcn Bob Rice and Fr. Dave Pivonka

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

For many of us a big challenge we have in ministry is NOT developing and delivering talks ourselves, it’s being confident that we have an effective plan to help OTHERS develop and deliver talks. 

For many years I took the easy way out. I’d be in charge of, let’s say, getting others to give talks at a retreat, and I’d wind ‘em up and let em go.  Very little engagement, oversight, and almost NEVER any feedback.  And you could tell. They could too.  No one felt good about it.  

But about 10 years ago I knew I needed to make a change, I had to get invested in the right way from beginning to end.  Each step along the way was really important and shouldn’t be overlooked.  and THAT’S  what we are going to dive into today.   

Download PDF Overview of Episode 51: Four Stages of Equipping Others to Give 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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.

Description

What happens when you really stand back and let Jesus lead the way?  Yes, in every aspect of your life - career, vocation, raising kids, etc.. 

But what if Catholic speakers, with great talent, opportunity and ambition don’t follow this principle.  I shudder to think, but then again I just have to look at my own life to see the results. Self-reliance is an idol that needs to be crushed in each our lives as disciples, and certainly foremost for those who come to serve the Lord through speaking, teaching and speaking.  

But I started off by asking ‘what if’, what would it look like for a Catholic speaker to  be dead serious about expecting, waiting, and trusting Jesus to take the lead?   While no one does it perfectly, my guest today, Mari Pablo, shares with great humility and profound trust in God, her conviction the need to to step aside and allow Jesus to bring the opportunities, bear the fruit, and get the glory. 

Mari Pablo grew up in a devout, always supportive, boisterous Hispanic family in South Florida. She graduated from Franciscan University with a double major in theology and psychology; she also holds a Master of Theology from the Augustine Institute. She has worked in youth ministry for over 15 years, and is currently serving parishes and universities across the country with The Evangelical Catholic.

​Mari is a presenter in numerous projects for Ascension Press and is well known for her dynamic presentations at the annual Steubenville Youth Conferences, NCYC, NET, Life Teen events, FOCUS conference, diocesan events and more. Mari has a deep love for food but an even greater love for Christ and is dedicated to helping others encounter Him.

Connect with Mari online at her website.

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.

Better Preach is a proud member of Spoke Street, a Catholic Podcast Network that amplifies the voice of the Creator through fostering content that invites. 

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.  

I made this podcast with help from Riverside FM. Want to try it out for your podcast? Here’s a link to get you started.