A Practical Act of Faith
Teisa Unga is a community organiser from House of Grace Family Church in Auckland, who reflects on faith in action to create positive change in our churches and neighbourhoods.
I often think about Peter stepping out of the boat to walk towards Jesus on the water in Matthew 14. Faith required him to take a step. He could not stay in the boat and expect the miracle to happen around him.
For years, I sat in church listening to sermons about faith, justice and caring for the vulnerable. But I began to ask whether we were meeting Christ halfway, whether we were willing to step out of the boat and take action alongside our prayers.
We prayed for our communities, but were we speaking out about the issues affecting them? We prayed for families struggling with poverty, but were we standing alongside them and working to change the conditions creating it?
For me, voting is one of the clearest ways we can meet that obligation halfway. The policies politicians make can have real consequences for the prayers we pray, for decent wages, secure housing, good education and families living with dignity.
Sometimes the answer to a prayer can also come through a policy decision.
Sometimes the answer to a prayer can also come through a policy decision. Enrolling to vote is therefore more than a civic task. It is a practical
act of faith, taking our first step then trusting God to elevate what we do.
Connecting to community
I reflect on my 12 years as a youth leader in my church, from age 18 to 30, with deep gratitude to my pastors for trusting me to take our youth beyond the four walls of the church. Our church has always understood that faith is lived in community. We were not waiting for an election to become active. We volunteered, served families, supported community initiatives and looked for ways our young people could put their faith into practice.
Coming from a small local church, running a youth programme often meant limited resources and even less time. But our conversations quickly went beyond church attendance. They were about how we could support young people to stay strong within their families and communities while navigating poverty and the social issues affecting their homes.
One part of our programme involved packing food parcels for Auckland City Mission. I imagined the people who did not have enough food or basic necessities, but as we kept volunteering, some of our young people were shocked by what was being donated. I realised they were themselves coming from households where people went without. Poverty was not happening somewhere else. It was sitting in the homes and families of people in our own church.
House of Grace Family Church youth after their performance at the Tongan Assemblies of God (AOG) NZ national youth weekend, 2024.
…what does it mean to pray for change if I am not willing to meet God halfway and do something about it?
Anger at injustice
That realisation changed something in me. Sometimes, all I felt I could do was pray. Prayer still matters deeply to me. But I began asking, what does it mean to pray for change if I am not willing to meet God halfway and do something about it?
That question first led me to take my youth door-knocking, not for a political campaign, but simply to check on families in our own community. I watched young people who had never spoken to a neighbour find the courage to knock on a stranger’s door and return changed, having heard stories that echoed their own.
What surprised me most was not their nervousness, but their anger. Many were carrying private pain, parents working multiple jobs, overcrowded homes and food insecurity they had never spoken about. Hearing those experiences reflected back to them gave their pain a shape. It stopped being something to hide and became something they could act on.
That is when I understood that righteous anger is not a contradiction of faith. It can be a response to injustice that moves us towards action. Our youth began to see that their circumstances were not simply individual struggles. They were connected to wider issues affecting families across our communities.
Your voice counts
During elections, that community work took another step. We moved from door-knocking to check on families, to helping people enrol to vote. The conversation changed from, ‘How are you doing?’ to, ‘Your voice counts, and here is how you can use it.’ Young people helped neighbours understand that decisions about housing, wages and education are not abstract. They affect real households, including our own.
My journey into politics and community organising grew from these experiences. Working as a field organiser for a political party gave me a closer understanding of how campaigns operate, while community organising deepened
my understanding of collective power. I have worked alongside workers, communities, young people and faith groups and seen what happens when private pain becomes a shared purpose.
For young people especially, this matters. The decisions made today will shape the world they inherit. Our role as a church is not only to pray for that future but to help build it.
Sometimes faith looks like prayer. Sometimes it looks like packing a food parcel, knocking on a neighbour’s door, helping someone enrol to vote, or teaching a young person that their anger at injustice can become action.
For me, faith outside our church walls means meeting Christ halfway. We take the step we can take, we serve, organise, speak, enrol and vote. Then we pray not as a substitute for action, but asking God to elevate what we are willing to work for together.
