RiverLife Weekly #26: Evangelism in the Workplace

I came to know the Lord in 1993 and subsequently ran into practical problems working with my business partner.

Without being offensive, I had to stop participating in the seventh-month hungry ghost ceremonies which I used to organise. There were also occasions where he wanted to engage a fengshui master to adjust the office layout when business was poor, and disagreements arose when I objected.

Business had its ups and downs but we managed to build it up to a level that we needed further cash injection to keep it going. At that time, my partner and I were up to our necks with personal guarantees and overdrafts so we decided to take the risk of listing our company in the stock exchange. If we do not succeed, we would face dire consequences, as the cost of the IPO exercise was massive.

The process took about a year and along the way, we encountered many obstacles, to the extent that my then pre-believing partner even asked me to go on my knees to pray to “your God” to overcome them.

Miraculously, in Jan 2003, we managed to list the company in SGX-SESDAQ and cleared all our debts and personal guarantees. Then another set of troubles hit us.

The SARS epidemic hit Asia in February 2003 whilst the Iraq war in March caused the economy to crash. My partner, who was then Managing Director, was under tremendous pressure to perform as share prices were falling. In desperation, he asked me to introduce him to “my God”.

After my partner accepted Christ, I encouraged him to attend the Alpha course. When we enquired at the Alpha office, they suggested that we conduct Alpha in our office as we had a very nice and well-equipped conference room. The first few runs were held with our staff during lunch time. Subsequently, we invited friends from neighbouring offices to join us.

After 8 runs of Workplace Alpha in our office, we wanted to reach out to offices in new areas. We felt the Holy Spirit prompting us to think outside the box – run Alpha in a tour bus. We could park the bus near the office for which we were running Alpha and invite office workers to join us for lunch in the bus. They would then watch the video on their personal screens. As we prayed, we saw God bringing people and resources together to make it happen.

We ended up doing 2 runs of Alpha on Wheels, literally bringing the Gospel to their doorstep.

Many lives were changed. Miracle healings took place as a result of Workplace Alpha and Alpha on Wheels. I thank God that my ex-business partner is now also serving God in a vocational ministry (full-time) in a church in Singapore.

Patrick Ng