Bear Woznik

In a culture that seeks to place men in a predetermined category, Bear Woznick defies easy classification. A rare combination of serious adventure seeker, husband, father and devout Catholic, Bear’s creed, “the most radical thing you can do in life is to abandon yourself to the wild adventure of God’s will,” dynamites an opening in people’s souls to the possibilities that God has for them.

Bear left the Catholic Church and embraced non-denominational Christianity for over a decade, but reading the early Church fathers and a deep longing for the Eucharist brought him back filled with a passion for the Catholic Faith. In the meantime, he spent years working at CPA firms such as Price Waterhouse and Deloitte Touche in land-locked cities around the country, but it wasn’t until he came back to the ocean and the faith of his childhood that he found his true home.

While on his journey home, Bear realized that being a Catholic does not just mean being a nice guy who pays the bills, mows the lawn and sits in a pew on Sunday. God calls each of us to be a saint, and Bear believes that He calls every person to be a hero. But being a hero requires prayer. It requires suffering. It requires faith formation. It requires the disciplined pursuit of intimacy with God and an abandonment to His Will.

Now, as a World Champion surfer, certified Ninja Black Belt, cast member of Fox Fuel TV’s adventure show “Clean Break” and all around adventurer, Bear’s life message transparently communicates the thrills and spills of a life lived in the quest of abandonment to God. His life inspires people to rise to the unique challenge and purpose that God has for them in every dimension of their lives. And as a novitiate Benedictine Oblate, certified Catechist and co-founder of Fishers of Men, a parish-based men’s fellowship movement, Bear follows a faith journey in his own faith community of Waikiki Beach, Hawaii.

Men and women want a challenge. They want an adventure and they want meaning. Throughout his use of media – writing, blogging, reality TV, radio features on the virtues, his talks and his upcoming Catholic radio program – Bear inspires people to a high calling as well as a weightiness of purpose that gives them traction to lead by example those that God has called them to serve.