Better Preach

Description

In this podcast we have focused almost all of our attention on helping people get better at giving discrete talks, teachings, or testimonies to Catholic audiences (at retreats, conferences, in homilies, ministry nights, you name it.).

But there’s another kind of speaking, in the Catholic world, that is super important and often overlooked and it DOESN’T  involve addressing an audience through a  keynote talk, teaching, or testimony.  

And that’s the role of an emcee.

Sometimes called a host, the emcee plays a really influential and important role for many Catholic events.  

But what makes for a great emcee and what skills does an emcee need that isn’t required of other kinds of talks? 

Today, I’m joined again by my good friend and occasional co-host, Connor Flanagan as we dive deep into the guiding principles of How to be a great emcee.  

Download PDF Overview of Episode 49: Four Guiding Principles of Being a Great Emcee. 

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

There may have been an era in the history of the Church when Catholic teachers and preachers didn’t need to share anything really at all from their own lives in their talks. 

This is not that era. 

With all of the Church’s teachings available free of charge on that smart phone in your pocket, knowledge and information isn’t where we are lacking. 

But there is one thing that I can’t access on the internet - your story, your experience,  and your struggles to live as a disciple of Jesus. 

In my conversation today with Matt Regitz we went  deep into the how and why of this paradigm, the irreplaceable importance of vulnerability - of presenting not just Catholic truths in your talks, but granting brave access to how you are actually bringing those truths to every aspect of your life. 

After graduating from Texas A&M and pursuing an oilfield sales career Matt Regitz took a leap of faith and became the youth minster at his parish in Houston, Texas. The mission has grown to include parishes around the world as he serves as a global leadership coach with Divine Renovation Ministries. Matt and bride, Stephanie, started Survive and Thrive Ministries to share their story of healing and hope with other families. The rest of the Regitz clan, including their four kids at home and a daughter in heaven, Mary Clare, love soccer games, barbeques, minivan road trips, and the communal life. 

Here’s the link to Divine Renovation Ministry 

Facebook page for Survive and Thrive Ministries 

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

it's been well-documented that the Catholic church has, historically, had something of a proclamation problem. The gospel, the good news hasn't been a regular part of our spiritual diet. It's not something we hear week in and week out. And yet I'd say that things have been shifting,  things have been changing. And I'd say over the course of the 25 years that I've been in ministry with college students and young adults, the tide has turned and it's really exciting. And yet while we may not have as much of a proclamation problem nowadays. I still think we have a problem. And it's a proclamation and response problem. How do we actually lead people Into evangelistic moments? How do we help them hear the gospel and then make a concrete response to its promises? 

So that's what I want to dig into. 

This is part three of the three part series we've been working on: On Sharing the Gospel. The first one was week one part one. “When you teach, preach!” When you teach the Catholic faith, preach the gospel. Week two:  “What's so good about the good news?”  We went through the core gospel message and shared what's so good about the good news. And finally today we're talking about how do you actually help someone respond to the gospel?  I want to give some practical tips and ways that I have seen that have worked in my years in ministry with college students and young adults.  

I hope it can bless you too. 

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

As the three year Eucharistic Revival began in 2022 in the U S. 50 different Catholic priests from around the country. We're commissioned and sent to preach: to announce again to the church that Jesus is Lord and that a perpetual sign of his love and mercy has been given to the church through the gift of his real presence in the Eucharist. When Jesus said just before he ascended into heaven, that he would be with us always. He meant it. 

Both in his personal ministry as a Bishop and as the head of the Eucharistic revival, my guest today on the podcast, Bishop Andrew Cozzens has great hope that this three-year journey isn't about starting a program, but rather about starting a fire; a fire of faith in Jesus Christ that will spread across the country and well into the future. In our conversation today, we discussed everything from the connection between preaching and belief in Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist, the unique history of Eucharistic congresses in America, what's on his bookshelf this month and why he doesn't keep old homilies on file. 

Bishop Andrew Cozzens, a proud graduate of Benedictine college in Atchison, KS served as a missionary for young people with both Twin Cities based NET ministries and the national college ministry Saint Paul's Outreach before entering seminary. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 1997. On December 6th, 2021, he was installed as the eighth Bishop of the Diocese of Crookston in northern Minnesota. He currently serves as the chair of the USCCB committee on evangelization and catechesis, where he has been tasked by the bishops with leading a three-year national Eucharistic Revival, which seeks to impact the U S church at every level strengthening Eucharistic belief and practice.

For more information on the Eucharistic Revival - check out this link 

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's so good about the good news? As much as I've shared this and reflected on it, has it taken proper root,, in my life? Have I heard it fully, to the depths of my being?

Have I allowed myself to receive it and to be transformed by it? The answer's gotta be sort of, mostly. . So much of it has taken root in my life and transformed my life. I just got off a four day silent retreat and oh my goodness, the gospel being proclaimed for a few days and me just again, receiving it,, and seeing its transformative effect.

But I am a work in progress and the good news fades in and out and I think it's relative to how good I really, really do think it is. 

So we gotta dig into it. so I wanna share today. A simple summary of the good news and what makes it so good. 

Is it the best one? Is it the right one? I don't know. I wanna share it because it's something that’s memorable for me. And if it's memorable I can make it available, to others. 

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Prayer of Surrender

Father, I believe that you created me, know me and love me.  Yet, I have not always chosen to love you in return and have damaged my relationship with you through sin. 

Thank you for sending Jesus to earth who proved your love by offering his life on the cross for me and for the whole world. 

I choose today to turn away from sin and turn toward your son, Jesus.

Jesus, I thank you for your love and mercy.  I open the door of my heart and I invite you to be the leader of my life — to be my Savior and Lord.

Holy Spirit, help me to follow Jesus as his Disciple and give me grace to live the truth of Catholicism in every area of my life.

Amen

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

There is a weightiness to preaching that differs from every other kind of speaking. The message isn’t our own. The impact isn’t up to us.  It’s power comes from without, by grace lives within, and cannot be tamed, controlled, or cajoled.  As the Spirit blows where it wills, the preacher waits on the Lord. This is the burden of preaching. But it’s not a burden that rests heavy, only to crush, but a weight imbued with the Spirit that can (and must) be carried as the Preacher grows in trust of one greater, in trust of God, Father/Son, and Holy Spirit.   

As I spoke with today’s guest, my dear friend Fr. Andriy Chirovsky, he shared about the weight and burden that comes along with Catholic preaching.  I was riveted and I think you will be too.  It challenged me out of thinking that I’m doing much of anything when I give talks and has encouraged me to wait on the Lord, beg for his mercy, and plead with God to speak to his people. Can’t wait for you to hear this episode with my good friend, Fr. Andriy. 

The Right Reverend Mitered Protopresbyter Andriy Chirovsky, who prefers to sign his name as “Andriy, sinner-priest,” was ordained to the priesthood by the Confessor of the Faith, the patriarch of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church, Josyf Cardinal Slipyj in 1980. He has had extensive pastoral and academic experience across the United States and Canada, and has preached and lectured throughout North America, Eastern and Western Europe, and Australia. He founded the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in 1986 at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and was its first Director for 16 years. The author of several books and numerous articles, Fr. Andriy has now retired from academic work due to his health. He is currently pastor of St. Paul Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Mission Parish in Flagstaff, AZ, where he lives with his wife, Halyna (yes, there are married priests in the Eastern Catholic Churches) and has founded East by Southwest Ministries, through which he is developing a series of podcasts on various aspects of the Theology, Spirituality, and History of the Eastern Churches, with an emphasis on East-West Ecumenism, and when appropriate, a good dose of humor as well. 

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

There are thousands and thousands of people in the Church today, youth ministers, DRE’s, Catechists, Priests, Deacons, Religious, who are teaching the Catholic faith to others.  And from me to all of you, first of all ‘Thank You!!” You are sharing the best news on planet earth with a world that desperately needs to hear the truth that will set them free.  

And if I could be so bold I just want to offer only one small piece of advice - today’s episode sums it up.  When you teach, don’t forget to preach!  If every person who was teaching the Catholic faith, also preached the gospel, our Church and thus our world would be a different place, in my very humble opinion.  And today we are just scratching the surface - I want to open the conversation today about the tricky relationship between teaching and preaching, Catechesis and Evangelization.  I’m not gonna cover it thoroughly, think of this as just a dip in the water.  There’s an ocean of words that have been spilled on this very important topic.  

This is part one of a three part series of solo episodes. They’ll come out in between interview episodes. 

Link to “Evangelization and Catechesis: Are We Really Proclaiming the Gospel” by Fr Johannes Hofinger, S.J. 

Link to “On Catechesis in Our Time” by Pope John Paul II

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.

Have you ever been asked: “if you could have lunch or dinner with any saint, who would it be?”

Well today we are going to have a conversation of sorts with a great saint in our Church’s history, a renowned teacher and preacher.  St Augustine.  And we are going to interview St. Augustine by way of a conversation with a theologian and Augustine expert, Dr. John Cavadini. 

His knowledge of St. Augustine, the preacher, teacher, theologian Bishop and Doctor of the Church can give us an exacting insight into what advice St Augustine might give us preachers, teachers, and speakers today, lay and ordained alike.  

John C. Cavadini is a professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, where he also serves as McGrath-Cavadini Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life. A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1990, Cavadini specializes in patristic theology, especially the theology of Augustine, patristic biblical exegesis, as well as the theology of miracles, of the Church, and of marriage, and theology of evangelization. 

In addition, my guest today also served as my academic advisor back in the early 2000s when I was working on a Masters in Theology from Notre Dame.  So, it was a great honor to catch up with him again after so many years.

Connect with McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame - https://mcgrath.nd.edu/

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.

Whether it’s at a retreat, a Conference, a prayer night, parish mission, even in the midst of a homily - there’s a fine line between a powerful effective testimony and a true ineffective one.  

Can you share the truth about God’s action in your life in a compelling and powerful way, and in such a way that it deepens the hearer's relationship with God and His Church? 

In this episode I want to share five pitfalls to avoid when developing and delivering a personal testimony.  And it must be said - I am speaking from first hand experience – I have fallen into every one of these traps. 

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.

When we see great Catholic speakers at conferences or giving talks online, we experience a brief snapshot in time, not just of stories, humor, and application of scriptures and Church teaching to our everyday lives, but a whole person.  We see it simply as a person with a microphone, but in reality the moment they grab the mic is simply the current state of the journey that began years and years before with countless hours of prep, prayer, and a consistent desire to be a disciple before ever being a speaker.  In my conversation today with Paul Kim we dig into the lifestyle of a speaker, and how what we see and hear on stage must be first rooted in the realities of everyday life, ordinary and holy. 

Paul J. Kim is one of the most sought-after Catholic youth & young adult speakers in America.
The way he presents is a rare gift to witness and has impacted people of all ages in 48 states and in 16 countries over the past decade. Moving his audiences from laughter in one moment, to deep reflection and prayer in another; Paul utilizes his many talents to communicate the Gospel message of Christ to people in a way that is engaging, entertaining, and altogether life-changing.

His background includes a BA in Philosophy (Franciscan University of Steubenville), an MA in Marriage and Family Therapy (Hope International University), religious formation with the Community of the Franciscans Friars of the Renewal (NYC), and life experiences working as a therapist, missionary, and youth minister. He currently resides in Austin, TX with his beautiful wife and five children.

Connect with Paul online at pjkmusic.com

Instagram: @heypjk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pauljisungkim
Twitter: @pjkmusic
YouTube: @PaulJKim

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.