Journey of a Thousand Steps

The Best Financial Advice

Have you ever felt anger or regret about the way your money has been handled? Have you ever been cheated out of fair pay, a fair property settlement, child support payments or your rightful inheritence? Do you carry shame or regret about financial losses in your life, or have high hopes of building your financial portfolio? This week we took the opportunity to strengthen our financial literacy based on what Jesus teaches (which is a lot). As we considered the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12:13-21, we learned that wise financial management and investment can start at any age or stage of life, on any income. Jesus cares about our needs, dreams and that we see good returns for wise investment. 
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 3 August 2025
 

What to Do When You Feel Inadequate

Do you ever feel stressed that you don't have enough money, support, confidence or strength to do what you really want to do? When Jesus' disciples asked him, "Teach us how to pray," they weren't just asking for a general lesson on prayer (Luke 11:1-13). They were in the middle of building the mission of their organisation, with a growing team that was now seventy leaders strong. They were asking, 'Compared with other groups, how do we pray?' Jesus' response spoke directly to the times we feel the most pressed and unsure of ourselves as we journey with Him as disciples. The famous words of The Lord's Prayer, teach us exactly how to pray when we feel underesourced, inadequate, unhealed and lacking in desire, or motivation for the things of God.
 
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 27 July 2025

Jesus Flips the Script

Is it more important to be a good person or to go to church? Chapter 10 of Luke's Gospel could trick us. After relaying the parable of the Good Samaritan, which sends a clear message that there's no point being religiously observant if you walk past a neighbour in need, Luke immediately hits us with the story of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). Suddenly we are told that spending time with Jesus, receiving His teaching, is more important than good works. What the? Martha's honesty and frustration with Jesus comes from two sources we can all relate to: internal worries and external pressures. This week we did a deep dive into the internal worries and external pressures that stop us prioritising the most important activity of all: time with Jesus. 
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 20 July 2025

How to Know Your Life's Purpose (By Embracing Inconvenience)

How do we discover or step into our life's purpose? We all wrestle with this question. Perhaps you are someone who, like the lawyer in today's passage (Luke 10:25-37), wonders whether the Christian faith can really help you know this. When challenged to be specific and to properly explain the way to have fulness of life, Jesus responds with the parable of The Good Samaritan. The story tells us that it is in the most inconvenient, unexpected moments of love, that God puts right in front of us, that we discover the big answers. By stopping for the one, even when we don't want to, we find ourselves falling into the life we were uniquely born for. 
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 13 July 2025 

How to Build a Startup Ministry from Nothing: Three Financial Strategies

This week we encounter Jesus' brilliance as a manager and founder. He knows how to build a startup ministry from nothing, even whilst facing opposition! As we see in Luke 10:1-24, he passes on three financial strategies to his newly appointed team of 72. First, he instructs them to offer their services for free (no exceptions). Secondly, he says to have no hesitancy relying on partners and donors to finance the movement. He calls these people "promoters of peace." Thirdly, the disciples are to avoid any capital that comes with compromise. If you'd like to watch these strategies unfold in real time, hang out with us at Holy Trinity, Port Melbourne!
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 6 July 2025 

When You Love Someone Who Can't Come With You

Everyone who follows Jesus eventually encounters a tension; a very painful tension. What do you do when your faith is growing ahead of the people you love, even the people you love the most? Sometimes, we have to let go of hoping that a friend or family member can stay with us on the journey, and give ourselves permission to move ahead of them. Sometimes we even risk the possibility that if we go where God is taking us, they may walk away altogether. This week we were reminded by Luke 9.51-62 that Jesus himself faced this: people who promised to follow him anywhere, but weren't really prepared for what that would mean. Some friends rejected him outright, even leaving him with nowhere to stay. There were times when he invited people, "follow me" and they said, "Yes, but ...". This message is an assurance of two experiences in the life of a disciple: sometimes it will hurt, but it will always, always, be worth relinquishing control, in the long run. 
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 29 June 2025

A Man Who Is Hard to Help

Does anyone remember the song 'Blow Up the Pokies' by The Whitlams (1999)? It was a song written about gambling addiction and the chorus was marked by a plea: "I wish, I wish I knew the right words to make you feel better, walk about of this place." Have you ever met someone who was very hard to help, or seen a situation that seemed too hard too fix? This week we encountered the power of Jesus to break the toughest barriers to freedom in the story of the Gerasene man: Luke 8: 26-39. But wait and beware - freedom of this kind only comes with a willingness to have our systems disrupted.  
You will want to finish this episode off by listening to the song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1iNkpCJOAOokeapM774xGE
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 22 June 2025

The Three Loves (Trinity Sunday)

Do you ever feel like religious doctrines seem man-made? When we hear phrases like "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in Church prayers and creeds, we might wonder whether the language comes from a patriarchal, institutional construct. We may find it distant, jarring, even 'cold' as a concept? This Trinity Sunday we explored the experience of God who is all the kinds of love we need to be fully human: parental, letting go love; child, growing into adulthood love; and friendship love, which is loyal, faithful and true. As we see the love that Jesus invites us into, in John 16.12-15, any notion of a cold, heartless, cruel Father God melts away. We come face-to-face with a love that is utterly unmatched, total and "finished." 
Today's sermon ended with a time for reflection on a song by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir called My Help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPqOdLKwcsM&list=RDaPqOdLKwcsM&start_radio=1
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 15 June 2025. 

How Miracles Work Today

How do you feel about believing in miracles? Today, as we celebrated the feast of Pentecost, we saw that Jesus uses miracles to provide evidence that he is real, that he is loving, that he is God. John 14.8-14 shows us that all those who believe in him will be given the authority to "do the works" that he was doing, and "even greater things that these" so that people will see evidence and believe. This week, Heather named some of the dangers and untruths that often go hand-in-hand with the way churches talk about miracles. She explains what miracles are, what they are not, and provides practical steps for taking up our authority as inheritors of the Kingdom of God.  
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 8 June 2025. 

What Does Church Give You That You Can't Get Anywhere Else?

Why go to Church on a Sunday when you could sleep in, catch up with an old friend, spend quality time with your family or play golf? There are good reasons why we are time-poor these days, as we chase important career ambitions, build homes, buy homes and, increasingly, spread our time building networks and relationships formed across the globe. Is going to Church on Sunday a habit of the past? This Sunday, Heather continued to teach about the Holy Spirit and why there is a kind of love that we cannot experience outside of participation in the true Church. 
Podcast by Heather Cetrangolo, 1 June 2025