The Rescue: A 12-Step Recovery Bible Study is a simple biblical approach to 12 Step addiction recovery.

The Rescue proclaims God's present and powerful love to all persons, regardless their failures and ruin. Whether the reader is struggling to overcome addiction, or is already enjoying recovery, The Rescue is meant to help any person working any 12 Step program.

The Rescue will bring a deeper dimension of God into 12 step recovery, whether it be from alcohol addiction, drug addiction, co-dependancy, pornography addiction, gambling addiction or any other 12 step discipline.

Through reflections and short Scripture passages, The Rescue: A 12-Step Recovery Bible Study proclaims God is good. God is powerful. His Word is a living word, and He wants to rescue His beloved children from the bondage of shame and addiction. He wants to rescue His children for freedom and joy in Him. God wants to be a light in your life so that you can be a light in the lives of others.

The 12 steps programs have been of immense help to millions of people. Monica Pope has now integrated the profound wisdom of the 12 steps literature with the power of God's Word in Scripture. This is an important contribution.

-Dr. Ralph Martin, S.T:D,, director of Graduate Theology Programs in the New Evangelization, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Archdiocese of Detroit

I am sober several years and I both work and live the 12 steps of recovery. I also am the founder of a facility that houses 30 women with their children. These are women who have substance abuse issues, are homeless and they can stay with us for up to 2 cars. Reading "THE RESCUE" has opened my eyes to a new self-examination for myself that I am anxious to pass on to the women we serve. What a spiritual journcy this has been for me and I look forward to publication!

-Dr. Paula Whitman, Paula's House

You can purchase The Rescue: A 12-Step Recovery Bible Study here.

If you are interested in live online ministry formation/ training sessions forThe Rescue 12 step recovery groups, please email: practicalkerygmaschool@gmail.com

“In catechesis too, we have rediscovered the fundamental role of the first announcement or kerygma, which needs to be the center of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal” (Evangelii Gaudium 164).

Kerygma Ministry Applications Sessions are 90 minute sessions focused on applying kerygmatic catechesis to specific areas of parish ministry. Every session will model compelling catechesis and will include group discussion and personal prayer.

Participants for these sessions should have attended the Destined Kerygma Retreat and be involved in some way in the relevant area of ministry. A parish can choose any four topics from the list below (or the Practical Kerygma Team can create a session for the particular needs of your community). The Practical Kerygma Team highly recommends that the Kerygma and the Eucharistic Liturgy session is included since the Eucharistic Liturgy is the source and summit of our faith.

Kerygma and the Eucharistic Liturgy (this session is for anyone involved in any ministry)
At the Second Vatican Council, the Church taught that encouraging “full and active participation” in the liturgy is “the aim to be considered before all else.” This session will explain why participation in the Mass is so essential to the Christian life and, based on that, present concrete ways for all of the faithful to participate more fully in the liturgy. 

Kerygma and the RCIA 
This session will inspire RCIA directors to demonstrate how the sacraments of the Church manifest the drama of salvation and show that, through the sacraments, God is sharing with us His divine life.  This session will give examples of how to practically implement kerygmatic catechesis into the parish’s RCIA process, synthesizing the two essential components of the Kerygma and the Catechumens’ own questions into prayer, personal faith, and ultimately, transformation. 

Kerygma and Infant Baptism Preparation
This session will explain how the Sacrament of Baptism fits in the drama of salvation and show that, through this sacrament, God is transforming us into other Christs. It will give examples of how to practically implement kerygmatic catechesis into the parish preparation process for infant baptism. 

Kerygma and First Communion and Reconciliation Preparation
This session will build off the Kerygma and the Eucharistic Liturgy session. It will provide a kerygmatic catechesis on the Sacrament of Revelation and will present practical ways to practically implement compelling catechesis and encounter opportunities into the parish’s preparation program for these sacraments.

Kerygma and Confirmation Preparation    
This session will dispel the idea that Confirmation is a rite of passage and will show how this sacrament is really about God empowering us for a radical life of holiness. It will give concrete suggestions for how to renew the traditional preparation process for Confirmation so that students experience a new Pentecost in their lives.      

Kerygma and Marriage Preparation
This session will make the bold claim that through the lifelong Sacrament of Marriage, God invites spouses to participate, in a privileged way, in His crafting them into another Christ. Through the daily lived experience of the Sacrament of Marriage, every act of marriage is an opportunity to enter more deeply into the “communion of love” shared by the Trinity; that same communion which God intends for the married couple to share in Him and with each other.

Kerygma and Pastoral Accompaniment
This session will draw from Pope Francis and Saint John Paul II’s teaching regarding the moral law, the law of gradualism, conscience, and God’s mercy to help ministers accompany others to lead lives of ever greater holiness and fidelity to the Gospel.

Kerygma and Youth Ministry
This session will help Youth Ministers ground their gatherings in kerygmatic encounters with the Lord in order to foster a deeply lived relationship between the teen, Jesus, and His Church. This session will demonstrate the importance of, and a few key methods for, deconstructing the formulaic and negative approach to morality, instead, proposing morality as a loving response to the love of God and the path toward holiness.

Kerygma and Outreach/Homebound
During intensely vulnerable and dependent stages of one’s life, a person’s relationship with the Person of Jesus Christ is utterly integral. If there still remains a lived relationship with the parish community, as through outreach, that lived relationship must ever more deeply foster encounter with Jesus Christ, the personal nature of His rescue mission, and God’s desire for immediate, deeper, and eternal union. This session will guide Outreach Ministers to bring more incarnational, therefore more profoundly hopeful, ministry to the homebound and shut-ins.  

If you are interested in hosting any of these events, or want more information, please email: practicalkerygmaschool@gmail.com

Practical Kerygma exists to authentically proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to holistically form ministers who will foster a healthier church.

Under the Practical Kerygma umbrella, they have crafted:

• Destined: A Kerygma Retreat which flows from and focuses on the rescue mission of Jesus Christ, made fully present in the Eucharistic Liturgy

• Ministry Application Sessions - small group workshops focused on applying kerygmatic catechesis to specific areas of parish ministry

• Life as Christ: Catholic Social Teaching Retreat which presents the Church’s social doctrine in light of the Kerygma

• The Rescue: A 12-Step Recovery Bible Study and live online ministry formation/ training sessions for Rescue 12 step recovery groups

• Practical Kerygma School - a formation process for adult Catholics to do healthier church. We just completed our first year with seven students. The school will resume in 2024

If you are interested in hosting any of these events, or want more information, please email: practicalkerygmaschool@gmail.com

Who’s on the team:

Monica Pope

Monica Pope has been doing evangelizing catechesis for 30 years in the Catholic Church.  She has worked in Michigan parishes as Director of Catechesis, RCIA leader, and Director of Discipleship Ministries.  Monica has created family catechesis programs in several parishes; she’s formed many dedicated and gifted Catholic disciples to be effective catechists.  She’s written and led hundreds of retreats, presented for thousands of people, ranging from First Communicants and their parents, to senior residents at assisted living facilities, to employees of diocesan chancelleries.

With her ministry partners, she crafted a one day Kerygmatic retreat for her diocese which she has enjoyed the privilege of preaching nationwide to thousands of people.  She is employed as a master catechist for Openlight Media, which is the media company run by the Dominican Sisters Mary Mother of the Eucharist (Ann Arbor Michigan.) 

Monica and her husband Tracy have been married for 35 years; they are parents of ten children, ranging in ages from 42 to 16, living in places as far flung as Ireland and Guam. In 2023, they expect the birth of their thirteenth grandchild. St John the Baptist in Ypsilanti is her parish, but lately she and her family have enjoyed attending Sunday Mass at St Moses the Black Parish in Detroit.  

Monica thanks God for every opportunity to do street ministry.  Her favorite saints are Saint Josephine Bakhita, and Jacinta and Francisco of Fatima.  Monica’s favorite prayer, aside from praying Scripture, is the Anima Christi, “Oh good Jesus, hear me. Within Your wounds hide me.”  Monica will joyfully testify: He does, and he does. 

Meghan Fiebelkorn

Meghan Fiebelkorn has been doing ministry in the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan for over 15 years. A short time after finishing her undergraduate degree, she completed graduate coursework in Pastoral Ministry before feeling called to serve the Church in Uganda for a time.

Over the years, she has led sacramental preparation and formation, written and given retreats for a wide variety of audiences, formed couples preparing for marriage, and assisted people in the discernment of their spiritual gifts by facilitating Called & Gifted workshops.

What brings her the most joy in ministry is praying with people as they encounter the love of Jesus, and teaching people about the beauty and richness of the Catholic faith.

Meghan and her husband, Chris, live in Michigan with their five children. Her favorite saints are St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John Paul II.

She is currently employed as the Director of Parish Life at St. Patrick Catholic Parish in Brighton, Michigan.

Paul Fahey

Paul Fahey has worked as a lay minister and catechist for over eight years and is also a retreat leader and catechist formator in the Diocese of Lansing.  He has an undergraduate degree in Theology and is currently working toward a Masters Degree in Pastoral Counseling. His long-term goal is to provide pastoral counseling for Catholics who have been spiritually abused, counseling for Catholic ministers, and counseling education so that ministers are more equipped to help others in their ministry.

Paul is the creator of the Pope Francis Generation podcast, and a co-founder of Where Peter Is. He has published articles and resources about spiritual abuse, Catholic social teaching, and pastoral accompaniment. 

Paul lives in Michigan with his wife and five kids. His favorite saint is Maximilian Kolbe. For fun, he reads pretty much everything Pope Francis has ever written.

Fr. Tom Wasilewski - Chaplain

Fr. Tom was born in Poland, when he was nine years old his family moved to the United States because of Communist persecution. Fr. Tom grew up in East Lansing, graduated from Central Michigan University and worked as a technician for IBM.  He heard God's call to a higher vocation and was ordained a priest of the diocese of Lansing in 2010. He has been serving as pastor of Old St. Patrick parish, near Ann Arbor, these past 6 years. Fr. Tom is interested in working for conversion of all souls to Christ!

“For Christians, the words of Jesus have an even deeper meaning. They compel us to recognize Christ himself in each of our abandoned or excluded brothers and sisters. Faith has untold power to inspire and sustain our respect for others, for believers come to know that God loves every man and woman with infinite love and “thereby confers infinite dignity” upon all humanity. We likewise believe that Christ shed his blood for each of us and that no one is beyond the scope of his universal love” (Fratelli Tutti 85).

LIFE AS CHRIST is a one-day retreat that will help you trust in God’s goodness and love for you personally and, in light of that, explain the four pillars of Church’s social teaching: Dignity of the Human Person, Common Good, Subsidiarity, Solidarity.

The heart of this retreat, and the heart of Catholic Social Teaching, rests on that revelation that God created humanity in his image and likeness. Because human beings are made in the image of God, we have infinite dignity (Dignity of the Human Person). We are made in the image and likeness of a Triune Community of Love (Common Good); have been given freedom (Subsidiarity); and because God is our Father and Creator we are all brothers and sisters (Solidarity).

Original sin causes us to be tempted to use other people as means to an end (Dignity of the Human Person), to turn in on ourselves in an individualistic way (Common Good), and to possess and control others (Subsidiarity). Further, the first sin, and all sin, are not just personal faults. Because we are all interconnected and interdependent on each other, sin begets more sin, it pollutes the human family, and creates structures of sin. God empowers His people and tasks us with undoing the structures of sin and building structures of justice (Solidarity).

These teachings are all connected and challenge every ideology and political party and invite us to have an “alternative way of thinking” (Fratelli Tutti 127).

LIFE AS CHRIST is for anyone who aches for a renewed encounter with Jesus Christ and who desires to walk “a way of life marked by the flavor of the Gospel” (Fratelli Tutti 1).

LIFE AS CHRIST is a quiet, powerful day-long retreat. It lasts 7-8 hours and is divided into five sessions. The first session proclaims God’s goodness and desire for each one of us personally. The rest of the sessions dive into the four pillars of Catholic Social Teaching. In addition to the talks, the retreat includes time for personal prayer, group discussion, and Eucharistic Adoration.

If you would like to bring this retreat to your parish, school, or community, please email us: practicalkerygmaschool@gmail.com

“God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has DESTINED us to share in that exchange” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 221).

DESTINED is a one-day retreat that will, at every moment, proclaim God’s goodness and relentless desire for you. We will present the rescue mission of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture. We will tell the story of Jesus Christ as experienced in our own lives. We will lead you to encounter Jesus Christ in the Eucharistic Liturgy.

“Christian faith is either an encounter with Him alive, or it does not exist. The Liturgy guarantees for us the possibility of such an encounter. For us a vague memory of the Last Supper would do no good. We need to be present at that Supper, to be able to hear his voice, to eat his Body and to drink his Blood. We need Him. In the Eucharist and in all the sacraments we are guaranteed the possibility of encountering the Lord Jesus and of having the power of his Paschal Mystery reach us” (Desiderio Desideravi 10).

DESTINED is for anyone who aches for a renewed encounter with Jesus Christ, who desires to experience a God who is as good as He says He is, who thirsts for greater healing and transformation whenever they attend Mass.

DESTINED is a quiet, powerful day-long retreat. It lasts 7-8 hours and is divided into four sessions. We model our approach on the Road to Emmaus, where Jesus first opened up the scriptures and then revealed himself in the breaking of the bread. So the first three sessions walk through key stories in the Old Testament, Gospels, and New Testament—along with personal testimonies—to proclaim God's desire to rescue us and make us partakers of the divine nature. The final talk is all about the Eucharistic Liturgy as the privileged way that God gives us to not just remember his saving work, but to participate in it. In addition to the talks, the retreat includes time for personal prayer, Eucharistic Adoration, and prayer ministry. 

If you would like to bring this retreat to your parish, school, or community, please email us: practicalkerygmaschool@gmail.com