This summer at Gateway in Austin, we’re celebrating the power of one life to make an extraordinary difference.
As part of our annual Gateway Voices series, Voices: The Butterfly Effect will feature real stories from people across our Gateway family whose small steps of faith have created lasting impact.
Together, we’ll discover how God uses ordinary people, everyday moments, and simple acts of obedience to create ripple effects that change lives, families, and communities.
Digging Deeper:
Use these questions to discuss the message with your small group, roommates, or family.
Message on Video from Gateway North Austin:
Message Notes from Haley Carter:
Good morning today we are starting our yearly July series VOICES! This is a time of the year where we take a few weeks to hear from different voices in our community. Our theme for voices this year is, “The Butterfly Effect”.
The paintings you see on the stage are the work of a lovely woman in our church named Janis Runyan. When she heard that the theme of Voices this year would be the Butterfly Effect she offered to paint butterflies (something that she often paints) to use on the stage. When I asked her the connection between painting and her relationship with God here is what she said:
“My company is called Imago Day- imago is the stage in a bugs life where it sprouts wings. I love that picture and it reminds me of early on when I first experienced forgiveness and freedom in Christ and also that ongoing morphing is available everyday that only He can create. Painting is an overflow that comes from the feeling of being overwhelmed by God’ s love and forgiveness. In Him I feel like I have been given a completely new life.
Would you join me in thanking Janis for sharing her art with us!
This year we are going to take what we have seen and learned from the early church in the book of Acts and we are going to make it personal – What if we said yes to this journey of faith that the early church was on? What could this look like now, HERE for you – for me?
Two weeks ago we saw at the end of Acts that Paul, “…proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” Act 28: 31. But the church didn’t stop there. The good news of Jesus continued to spread and reach further and that expansion has continued. We are invited into the same journey to “proclaim the Kingdom of God and share Jesus with boldness”. Today we are going to consider how small actions we take in faith can cause ripples that impact far beyond what we can see.
Spiritual implication:
This Voices series we are calling, “The Butterfly Effect”. The term “butterfly effect” was coined in the 1960s by Edward Lorenz, a meteorology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was studying weather patterns. He devised a model demonstrating that if you compare two starting points indicating current weather that are near each other, they’ll soon drift apart – and later, one area could wind up with severe storms, while the other is calm. He was pointing out that in a complex system we can NOT accurately predict the future, because small effects cause changes we can’t anticipate. Alessandro Filazzola, a community ecologist and data scientist, and post-doctorate fellow at the University of Alberta was asked this question, “How can we possibly do much of anything in our lives, then, without fear of causing harm?” He responded by saying, “Better understanding of indirect effects is probably one of the most important steps in trying to mitigate these effects. More simply though, just keeping nature as close to its original state is really the most important thing,”
With our faith the butterfly effect is a little different. As Filazzola said In nature there are unknown variables that we can’t always predict or understand, BUT in our faith we serve a God who not only created all things (so He has an intimate knowledge of them – nothing is a mystery to Him), but He also holds all things together (He is in charge)! So, when He gives us instructions, we can trust that He is the master of all and therefore small acts of obedience to what He has said can have massive effects for the good and flourishing of humanity and nature. For example: we know that small changes in our spiritual practices, such as starting to read the Scriptures and pray daily, will change us from the inside out to be more like Jesus – more loving, wise, and thoughtful people.. We also have been given the stories of small acts of faithfulness in the Bible and in church history to see how faithfulness from ordinary Christ-followers has led to 1000’s of people coming to know and trust in Jesus and led to so many wonderful advances in the care and cultivation of humanity.
So what are God’s instructions to us? Jesus gave us two statements during His time on earth that some call the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. These two instructions sum up what it looks like to follow him.
Great Commandment:
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22: 37-40
Great Commission:
18 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus lived His life like this – loving God and others, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom (that God is here now and wants a relationship with us!).
So, how do we do this? Where do we start? Are we called to go stand on the street corner and preach, maybe? Are we just supposed to drop everything to love and serve anyone we run into – could be..
But, what if it starts smaller. What if small acts of obedience to God right where you are change the world?
Case studies: Ruth:
Let’s look at a normal everyday person in scripture to see what we can learn from her life. Turn with me to the 8th book in the Old Testament – the book of Ruth.
Let’s read the introduction to the book:
1In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. 2The man’s name was Elimelek, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.
3Now Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
So we see that the book takes place “in the day of the judges.” What does that mean? The book before Ruth is the book of Judges and it describes what this time period was like. The context is that Joshua had led the people out of the desert wandering (where they had been for 40 years after God had delivered them from Pharaoh in Egypt). Joshua led them into the promised land and set them up to follow God and be His people who lived life differently from all the surrounding peoples IN ORDER to show them what God was like, but that doesn’t happen. We see this description of what happens after Joshua dies in Judges 2: 10-12.
10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. 12 They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger.
This was a very disturbing time in Israel’s history where they lived violently, dishonoring others and forgetting God. They are ruled at this time by military leaders who were called Judges.
This is the time when the Book of Ruth takes place.
There is also a famine, so this man from Bethlehem takes his wife and sons and moves to Moab seeking food. Quickly Elimelech dies. His two sons marry Moabite women, and then they die. At that time, single women with no sons would have a very hard time surviving, so Naomi decides she must move back to Bethlehem in order to survive. She tells her daughter in laws to go back to their families, so they can remarry and move on in their lives. Orpah does, but Ruth (whose name means friend) says this to her mother-in-law,
“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth 1:16-18
This is the first small act that has ripple effects in this story:
Small Act: Ruth chooses to be faithful to her family and binds herself to God
We can assume from the narrative that this family was faithful to God because Naomi’s husband’s name Elimelek comes from the words el = God and melek = king and literally meant, “God is king”. So, Ruth saw that and chose to bind herself in faithfulness to Noami and her God leaving behind the idols of her people.
Let’s continue in the story, so they come back to Bethlehem and everyone is talking about their return and losses and Naomi hears them and says this, Ruth 1:20-22, 20 “Don’t call me Naomi, ” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” 22 So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.
By this point you are probably saying, wow I came to church to be encouraged and you are telling me the saddest story I’ve heard in the Bible – thanks a lot!
Hold on though – Life isn’t always easy. There is suffering in life and we can’t avoid it. We lose jobs, loved ones, suffer under unjust authority, or at the hands of broken people who hurt us. I am glad the Bible doesn’t avoid this or pretend that suffering isn’t a part of life. I couldn’t believe in a God who painted a rose colored life, because that isn’t reality. In fact, let me remind you that we follow a God who saw the mess of this world and chose to enter it, suffering with us, being despised and rejected and ultimately laying down His life in the most brutal way all because He wanted to reconnect broken people to a God that is and has always been doing a work of restoration and healing!
So, even though life is in the pit for Namoi and Ruth – God is at work! Do you believe that for your own story? It is true – God is the God of restoration!
The writer of the book of Ruth gives us a little clue of this in this line – Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning. Vs 22.
I love this! Being a student of the Bible is SO FUN! There is always more to learn and see as we grow in our relationship with God through the scriptures!
The time they return to Bethlehem (which literally means house of bread or food) is at the Barley harvest.
So there is 1.) no longer a famine – there is food, enough to harvest AND 2.) The Barley harvest was at the beginning of Passover.
What we see here is immediate provision from God for today’s needs AND Passover was the remembrance of the day God delivered the israelites out of slavery and made them into a nation and a people that he promised to bless. AND as modern readers, we see the word Passover and we know that is when Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice who made a way for redemption for all people for all time.
So, the writers of Ruth are clueing us into a coming reality – Even when hope seems gone, God is still writing a story of redemption, often through ordinary people.
But do we have eyes to see it or a heart that believes it?
Let’s fast forward in the story.
Naomi and Ruth run out of food, so Naomi tells Ruth to go and gather grain from a nearby field. God set up in the Torah (which means instruction) ways for the Israelites to care for the poor and one of the ways was that they shouldn’t harvest the whole field – they should leave the edges so that poor people can come and gather food and live.
Ruth, just so happens to go to a field of a man that is a distant relative of her late husband. Another law that God set up is that relatives have a responsibility to redeem the property and family of their deceased kin. This was in order to care for the vulnerable and carry on a family line. Boaz not only allows Ruth to gather grain in the field, but he shows her kindness and provides above and beyond what the law requires.
Ruth 2:15-16 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”
This is a second small act of faithfulness that causes a ripple effect that we will see:
Small Act 2: Boaz sees Ruth’s need and goes above and beyond to provide for and protect her.
He could just let her gather from the edges like the law requires, but he has heard her story of faithfulness to Naomi and he honors her and proves to be a man of honor himself!
Next, Naomi tells Ruth to go to Boaz and “lie down beside him. He will tell you what you should do.” This sounds super sketchy – Naomi is telling Ruth to do what? But Ruth obeys and goes to the place Boaz will sleep for the night and does exactly as Naomi said. And when Boaz wakes up, Ruth, in great boldness tells Boaz, “I am your servant Ruth,” she said. “Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a guardian-redeemer of our family.” Like I mentioned earlier she is evoking the law where a close relative (called a guardian redeemer) can marry her and buy back her family’s land. What crazy and amazing boldness Ruth shows! Boaz acts with the utmost dignity and honor and tells her that he will do as she requested, but he needs to first give the opportunity to a closer relative. He acts honorably that night and makes sure Ruth gets home with food and isn’t disgraced in front of others by being seen leaving his tent. The next day he goes to the elders and the other relative to figure out who should take on the responsibility of Ruth, Naomi and their land. The other relative is only interested in gaining Naomi and Ruth’s property NOT the responsibility for Ruth and Naomi. So, Boaz becomes their “redeemer” and buys back their land and marries Ruth.
The 3rd act of faithfulness that causes a ripple effect that we see:
Small Act: Boaz puts Ruth’s interests over His own and redeems all that was lost.
The book ends by telling us that Ruth has a son and that son is in the line of King David. In the book of Matthew we see that Ruth is also mentioned in the lineage of Jesus!
Small acts of faithfulness from an outsider, a widowed Moabite women, and a faithful and honest insider, Boaz, become that pathway for the king of kings who is bringing restoration and redemption to the whole world!! WOW!!
Do you think Ruth could have known that trusting in the God of her husband and obeying her mother in law would lead to a restored life and being in the family line of the foretold Savior? NO WAY. Or Boaz, living a life of integrity in a time of lawlessness and violence – choosing to obey the laws God has set in place at cost to him would lead to being the great grandfather of David who was a King after God’s own heart? Not a chance. They were just faithful right where they were and God used their faithfulness to bring about redemption!
This is one of SO SO many stories in the Bible of unlikely people being the very ones God chooses to use to change the world.
Over and over the Bible shows us that God MOST OFTEN chooses to work out HIS PLANS in the world through the faithfulness of ORDINARY PEOPLE.
Let’s go back to our original question from the Butterfly effect – how could I, How could you take a small faithful step today to love God and others?
How could we live our lives so that they have a ripple of impact like the lives of Ruth and Boaz?
Well let me ask you these questions – What makes you tick? Where do you live and work? What are you passionate about? Those may be the very starting places that God wants to use.
For Ruth it was a devotion to Naomi and Naomi’s God no matter what. She encountered the living God through this faithful family and she was committed with her whole life to Naomi’s flourishing.
For Boaz it was loving God by following the laws God had given them for how to live as his people, even in a time when everyone had forgotten God and were “doing what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.
For both it took faith that led them to speak and act in ways that caused ripple effects for the Kingdom of God they couldn’t have predicted. A BUTTERFLY EFFECT
WHAT ABOUT US…
Here in 2026 God is on the move and is inviting us in right here in Austin, TX
Production, put this on the screen
Kolton Rogers is a 20 something in our church. Kolton owns a media company that he has grown for the last decade to be a very successful business. During Covid my oldest son, Elijah, got into photography and film and decided that he wanted to get better at it and maybe pursue it for a career. Kolton offered to mentor Elijah the summer after his 7th grade year by letting him come along to see what he does in his job. As I was talking with Kolton about this he laughed and said I don’t know how much work I got done when he was “helping” me. But the result of that summer was that Elijah grew and got to watch a man of God in his day to day life. The next summer he interned again with Kolton, and the next and the next. As a result, my son developed a deeper relationship with Jesus and learned to prioritize his relationship with God and the church AND decided to go to film school to learn to tell stories through the media of film that point to the goodness and reality of God.
When I ask Kolton why he mentors teens here is what he said,
“ When I was a teenager, I had a few adult mentors who took a chance on me. They saw something in me before I fully knew how to see it in myself, and they helped me discover skills and passions that have shaped both my career path and my ministry. Mentoring can be as simple as being present and intentional with the people already around you. I’ve found that God often opens doors through ordinary conversations, especially when I approach people with curiosity and make the effort to keep showing up. I believe leadership is influence – And everyone has influence. If you can encourage someone, inspire them, or help them see what’s possible, then you have the ability to mentor. You don’t need a title to make an impact.”
Small acts of faithfulness in his passion opened Kolton’s heart to say yes to mentoring the next generation to grow in character, talent, and love for God that can have a ripple effect that makes a difference in the world! Is there a young person in your life you could take a mentoring role with? If not, join what we are doing here at Gateway with our next gen!
So what about you? What is God up to in your life that you’ve missed or written off?
You aren’t too insignificant to be invited into God’s amazing story of Restoration. You don’t need to know a certain amount of Bible stuff, or be a Christ-follower for a certain amount of time – YOU’RE INVITED IN – ARE YOU WiLLING to love God and love others? Are you willing to help others know our amazing God?
As we close out our time, we want to give you a bit of time to sit in this space, don’t rush out. Ask God how He wants to partner with you through small acts of faithfulness to cause a butterfly effect. .
- Maybe you have a talent He wants to use.
- Maybe you are a gatherer, people are drawn to you – so you have a unique platform to share more honestly about the God you know who loves them.
- Maybe you have a job that gives you proximity to people and you can just start serving them.
- Maybe your in the throws of raising kids, and you can teach them about the reality of God.
- Maybe you are a student and you can take on the mantra, “there is always room for one more in your group”
What is ONE SMALL STEP OF FAITHFULNESS you can take this week to follow the example of Jesus?
