In 2017, I pioneered a social media team for my church. The plan was simply to build an online platform to disseminate church announcements.

Since that moment, God has been bringing me on a journey to discover the potential of online ministry. He has opened my heart to see that social media can do so much more than just promoting church ministries.

That said, pioneering a digital ministry back then certainly wasn’t easy. While there were people who believed in the potential, not many were ready to come on board to build it together. I had a lot to figure out by myself, especially during the early period of pioneering.

It wasn’t until COVID hit the whole world that the Church recognised the necessity of a digital platform. Ironically, that turned out to be the toughest season for me. I was just pushing myself to go all out, so much so that I didn’t watch my boundaries and my relationship with God.

As the guy who was always rooting for an online ministry, I felt like that was the best opportunity to prove my point. I felt the pressure to push beyond all my limits to make things work, and that caused me to burn out.

I put ministry above my relationship with God, and ended up in resentment.

HACK Care

Unexpectedly, God reassured me of His grace and restored my heart through a hackathon organised by Indigitous Singapore, called #HACK.

Hearing about #HACK got me excited because I was already trying to do digital outreach with my church congregation. Finding out that there was this community that shared a similar vision made me feel seen and understood.

Initially, joining the hackathon felt intimidating because I had no experience in coding. All I knew was creating content and marketing on social media. I was scared to be working with tech-savvy coders, so I just kept quiet during the first meeting to avoid looking stupid.

As it turned out, the community at Indigitous was extremely welcoming and warm! They really took us under their wings and worked with us to come up with solutions.

While our task was to propose and work on our own problem statement, working with the coders there made me realise how much more we could do with their help. I was amazed by how much more powerful this digital ministry could be than what I once thought.

#HACK also brought me to experience how digital ministry could be done in communities.

Back then, a few of us came together to tackle the problems we faced with launching NGL People (a digital ministry initiative by Hope Singapore).

My heart was warmed as I saw how God could bring us together and use our different gifts to achieve His purpose. It also taught me to be secure and content with the conviction that God has given me, as I was assured that digital ministry really had a potential and it wasn’t just my crazy thoughts.

Eventually, as I was serving as a media intern in my church, I got to produce and witness the launch of the first season of NGL People.

Despite the many sleepless nights during #HACK, I found myself feeling refreshed rather than fatigued. It felt like God had put in me a new spiritual fervour, and given life to my dry bones.

After my personal encounter with God through #HACK, I was keen to bring my ministry team to the event. I felt like the Holy Spirit had given me new joy and fresh convictions, and I couldn’t wait to share about them to my team.

When I was enlisting for National Service, I kept praying to God about how I didn’t want to miss out on #HACK as I still wanted to be able to serve.

Within the same year, there was a restructuring in my congregation and it allowed me to build a new social media team. That gave me the opportunity to impart the vision of digital outreach to a bigger group of people. I also brought some of them to #HACK and we are inching closer to launching a project that we have been working on for a year.

Our generation is hungry for something real – something that only Jesus can offer. 

People are searching for something to fill the void in their hearts. And as they are presented with more and more choices in how they want to live their lives, we as believers should represent Jesus in the online spaces these friends are in.

That’s why the need for digital ministry is greater than ever. Many are searching for their purpose and meaning of life in the online space – we need to show them that Jesus is truly the Way, the Truth and the Life!

#HACK2024 Singapore is happening from 25 October to 2 November. Whether you’re a coding whiz or a complete newbie – you are welcome to join as long as you’re passionate about using technology for God’s work. More details can be found here.