As a YouTuber, radio DJ and TV host, I always thought that I was quite open about my faith as a Christian.

But one time after I spoke at a church, a young person came up to me and thanked me for sharing before also saying that he didn’t know I was a Christian.

That got me. I was a little taken aback because I had always considered myself to be quite vocal about my faith. Yet, here was a young person who didn’t even know I am a Christian!

So, in 2019, I really began praying and asking God if I could do more for Him. I wanted to do more for the Kingdom and get the Gospel out to more people than what I was doing then.

It was a dangerous prayer for sure, but I’m thankful that it was also a blessed one. Hosting is my first love. I really think that it’s a gift from God — somehow when I open my mouth to host and entertain people, they tend to listen.

At the same time, I am also very passionate about people, especially the next generation. Starting a faith podcast came to mind because it was really where my passion intersected with my gifting.

At that point, there were already plenty of podcasts being started. But as a YouTuber, I didn’t want to just do a podcast. I wanted the content to be on video as well because I knew some stories would be very emotional and personal. It would be so much more powerful if people could see the body language and expressions.

That’s how the vision to start a vodcast series titled Let’s Get Real came about.

For “the one”

I received this vision in 2019, but I procrastinated and didn’t do anything about it until my wife, Phoebe, finally snapped me out of my procrastination and laziness.

I realised that I had to do something about this vision and burden that God had put on my heart because our time on Earth is short.

It is paramount to get the Gospel message out there and win as many souls as we can in this time that God has given us.

As long as one person would be blessed listening to our stories, then we would have done our part as the team.

When we were planning to start this project, we knew that money would probably be one of the main struggles. Finding a sponsor for a Christian production would definitely be challenging.

Yet, when we came together and prayed, we were convicted that we wanted to do it for “the one”. As long as one person would be blessed listening to our stories, then we would have done our part as the team.

True enough, when we started doing the vodcast, it was really favour upon favour. My previous boss, Jin, who isn’t even a Christian, allowed us to use his studio for free.

And I really prayed hard that God would provide every speaker that we needed for our first season. God’s favour was so evident. We even got YB Hannah Yeoh to share for the last episode!

As we progress, season after season, I am also grateful for how God has brought different people into the team.

We have grown from a group of three to a group of eight. And now we have our own studio, we have our own set.

I can literally walk into the studio, sit down and talk, and the team will do everything else. They function like a well-oiled machine, and I always tell my wife that this is really God’s grace towards us.

Of course, as we grow, there are also different challenges. When we first started, our videos were hitting above 10,000 views on average. But by the time we got to the third or fourth season, some of our videos only had hundreds of views.

Honestly, that was very discouraging for the team. It wasn’t easy to produce a vodcast, and all of us were volunteers. We were not paid a single cent and we were doing this on top of our day jobs. We really had to think if we should continue doing this.

But we persevered because of the vision: As long as one person, one soul watched the vodcast and told us that it brought them to God, that was all that matters.

I really thanked God for giving us this vision and mission since the very beginning. It pushed us to be obedient and faithful even amidst the bottlenecks and discouragements.

Finally, in 2024, we had something like a breakthrough year.

We didn’t hit 100,000 views or 100,000 subscribers, but as a team we felt that the atmosphere had changed.

We used to struggle with deadlines, production and post-production, but now we can see how smoothly things are going. Now we can even teach other people how to do it! We brought other churches for a trip to our studio and showed them how to produce a vodcast.

I think the team has really overcome a lot of challenges while serving our mission and vision, and I’m so proud of them.

Heaven rejoices

Once, there was an aunty in her 70s who sent us a few voice messages. It was very cute. She did a proper introduction of herself, telling us her name and that she was from Malacca.

She told us how she had been faithfully following our vodcast. She would play it on television every Sunday morning, she would always look forward to the next episode because she really enjoyed it.

It was simply so encouraging. Someone actually enjoyed our content so much that she would look forward to it every week.

There were also many testimonies of people using our content as cell group material, where they would have discussions and sharing after watching the video together.

I can’t track how many people have come up to me on the streets and thanked me for starting Let’s Get Real, but it’s always these little encouragements that touch me.

Just a few months ago, a 16-year-old boy came up to me when I was playing basketball. He told me that he really enjoyed the vodcasts.

But when I asked him which church he was from, he told me that he was actually an atheist and didn’t really believe in God. He just kept listening to the vodcasts because he found them very inspiring and they comforted his heart.

I was so surprised but heartened at the same time, because these are the people we are trying to reach – the pre-believers and the unchurched.

Our hope is simply that these stories could plant a seed in their hearts. Years down the road, when they are facing a tough season in their lives, they might look back to this time and remember someone talking about praying to God.

And my prayer is that they will somehow call out to Jesus and accept Him sometime in the future.

It’s really a privilege to see how people grow and how God works through Let’s Get Real. I don’t know how many more seasons we might be doing, but as long as people are blessed, we will keep telling faith stories, one at a time.