In 2017, Promise Sing left her full-time job to launch The Project J, a Singapore-based business offering creatively-designed journals and other merchandise that encourage believers to live life with a renewed mind through meditation on the Word of God. 

The main idea behind The Project J (TPJ) was to help Christians know Jesus well so they can, in turn, reflect Jesus truthfully to the world.

TPJ’s range of products included various forms of journals and devotionals (such as the Freedom Journal, the Identity Journal and the Dream Journal) as well as apparel, home decor and other accessories.

The Project J’s first four journals. The ones in gold and maroon are its Prayer Journals, the one in navy blue is its Identity Journal and the one in light blue is its Freedom Journal.

The inner pages of one of the planners from The Project J.

After a decade of running The Project J and selling over 17,000 journals in that time, Promise closed down her business in June this year.

She shared with Salt&Light 10 valuable lessons that she gleaned from 10 years of building a faith-based business. 

Lesson 1: What is that one thing that God has already shown you or spoken to you about?

We may fast and pray for business plans and blueprints, but the irony is that we do not always want to do what God asks of us or shows us, said Promise.

The Project J started at a time when 26-year-old Promise had just left her full-time job as an operations manager at a non-profit centre, moved into her new 4-room flat at Bukit Panjang, and was praying about what to do next.

After seven days of prayer and worship, she found herself in conversation with God about the state of the world. 

“I am in all of you, and if my people can be Jesus to the world, this world would be a better place,” she sensed Him say to her.

“What if you could create a resource that would help people get to know Me and experience revival in their own bedroom?” 

Ideas about this “resource” began popping into her head in rapid succession, and Promise grabbed a sheet of mahjong paper, and started scribbling all the ideas down. When she was done, she took a step back and looked at the filled-up sheet.

She thought: “Whoa, no, I’m not doing this”, folded the piece of paper and slid it into one end of her bookshelf.

“My first thought was that I have a house to pay for, I need the CPF. I started rationalising with God, saying ‘God, I don’t have the money for this, and if I have the money for this, I don’t have the space for it at this point,” Promise recalled.

She told no one about it, went about her day and did not even mention it to her husband.

Months later, she met a Pastor friend for lunch, and lamented to her about how distant or silent she felt God had been towards her lately.

The Pastor, who had no idea of what had transpired between God and Promise months earlier, simply told her: “What was the last thing that the Lord asked you to do? Go and do that thing first.”

At the moment, Promise remembered the mahjong paper that she shoved into a corner of her bookshelf. She went home and looked at it, and told God: “If You are serious about this, please show me.”

And show her, He did.

Promise was in good company with her struggle to accept God’s call on her life. In the Bible, when God spoke to His people, they all heard Him. Many of them struggled with what obeying would cost them.

Jonah ran (Jonah 1). Moses hesitated (Exodus 3 – 4). The rich young ruler walked away (Matthew 19: 16-22). King Saul only half obeyed (1 Samuel 15).

Promise, now 37, told Salt&Light: “Sometimes we call it ‘waiting’, ‘timing’, ‘thinking it through’, but deep down we know we’re struggling to obey. And still, God meets us in our running, in our hesitation and in the middle of what we couldn’t yet see.

“Obedience to God often looks like having the courage to trust and the guts to move before we see how it will all unfold.”

The Word Journal, one of the journals created by The Project J.

Lesson 2: Don’t focus on your lack. Go to God and let Him show you how He can work through you.

When Promise received the business idea from God, she gave Him three reasons why she could not carry it out.

The first was a practical reason. She did not even have a laptop to create the journals.

Second, even if she had a laptop, she did not know how to use design software.

Third, she knew one of the journals was to be a prayer journal but she felt unqualified to create one.

“I was like, God, I’m not really a prayer person, as in, I didn’t start a prayer movement. Who am I to create a prayer journal?” she told Him.

That same week, she arranged to have brunch with someone she was meeting for the first time. As her new friend sat down, she said to Promise: “Hey, I just got my new laptop from the IT fair. Do you happen to need an old laptop?”

“Who says that to someone they’ve just met?” Promise said. “I was really shocked.”

That same evening, her husband Shawn returned home from a prayer session. They had a late dinner and Shawn told Promise that his friend – the founder of a prayer movement in Singapore – had asked about her and told Shawn he was thinking of creating a prayer resource, like a prayer journal.

Promise with her husband Shawn, with the first versions of the journals.

Promise’s jaw dropped. It was clear these were not “coincidences”.

She could not believe what she hearing and knew at that moment that she had to tell her husband what had been happening between her and God. Shawn arranged for his wife to meet up with his friend, and TPJ came into being.

“How random and how crazy is that? God is so real, and you can trust Him,” declared Promise.

Lesson 3: Let the Holy Spirit be your Teacher.

Promise had no clue how to use design software, but the Lord pointed her to John 14: 26, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

She explained: “I have no design background. I really didn’t even know how to create an art board in Illustrator. In fact, I didn’t even know which software to use: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator.”

Still, she stubbornly clung on to that verse, praying through it while staring at her open laptop every day. 

The Project J’s first booth experience at St Andrew’s Cathedral during a Christmas event.

“I was like, ‘God, You will teach me all things.’ And I kid you not, He taught me which button is for what, where to click, and every time I closed my eyes, I would have a picture of what a journal cover would look like, the fonts, the colours, the size. And just from there I just started creating, playing around with the software and learning it on my own,” she added.

“In your weakness, His strength is made perfect.”

Every order was sent out in The Project J’s packaging.

Lesson 4: Trust that God will provide according to His perfect timing.

Promise had little faith about God’s provision because she has been working since she was 16 years old when her father passed away.

“Every month, even if the amount was small, I had income coming in. It’s so easy to say that we trust God to provide when we have a monthly income. It’s really another thing when you have no monthly income and you need to trust God to provide miraculously. God had to strip away all the security and stability that I thought I had to help me see who I actually put my trust in,” she told Salt&Light.

One day, she had a random thought. What if she did a pre-order?

“It was definitely not my own thought. I am not that smart. I’m not business-trained,” she noted.

She called her supplier and asked for a sample copy of the journal. She took two photos of it, uploaded them and orders started pouring in. That was how she got the money to print the first batch of journals.

Promise with her first set of sample journals.

Knowing that God was serious about this business idea, she also started working on the different designs for various journals. In one week, she had three different friends on three different occasions saying the same thing to her.

They asked if she had heard of the global crowdfunding platform for creators – Kickstarter – and suggested that maybe she should try putting her journals on the platform to raise some funds.

Thinking that maybe this tip was from God because she had received it three times, she went to the Kickstarter website and created an account to list her products.

“But before I clicked to publish it, I felt this heavy unease on my heart, like I wasn’t supposed to do it. So, I prayed and decided to sleep on it. If the funds didn’t come in the next day, maybe I would publish it,” she shared.  

The next morning when Promise awoke, she saw an email from a Pastor that she briefly met weeks ago when she was helping another organisation to man their merchandise booth. In his email, the Pastor asked if his church could buy 400 of her journals as a volunteer appreciation gift.

The Project J’s booth at Harbourlight Church during its Christmas event.

The funds came in from that bulk order, and Promise got the funds to print the second batch of journals.

“Never in a million years would I have imagined God providing this way — He is so faithful and good. His ways are always higher than ours.”

Lesson 5: The journey can be lonely sometimes. You will wish that more people are on board with you. But God didn’t call them, He called you.  

Eleven years ago when The Project J started, Promise remembered well-meaning friends, even some Pastors and intercessors coming up to her and saying: “I think you made a mistake quitting your job. You just got married. You have a new house. What about your CPF? What about stability?”

Apart from a small handful of people, she felt no one really came alongside her as she built the business.

“Most watched from afar. Not even a like, share or comment on any of our posts. There was a lot of ‘when are you going to get a proper job?’ It was lonely and painful,” she admitted.

She watched her peers pursuing careers, climbing the corporate ladder and getting promotions. In many of her social gatherings, she noticed that was all people talked about – the growth, the wealth, the success, the upgrades, the new house. People looked at her like she had embarked on something dated, or taken a wrong turn.

For the first few months of starting the business, Promise had doubts and felt  unsure most of the time.

“But as I wrestled with the Lord and lamented about the loneliness, I realised that God didn’t give them the vision. They don’t know the weight (of the call),” she said.

“Until someone has walked it themselves, they genuinely cannot understand it. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s that their minds, their eyes and hearts aren’t open to it yet. They can’t see what they never lived, especially if they have never started their own thing or taken a leap of faith. They can’t give what they don’t have,” Promise explained.

The Project J and like-minded friends running their booths at a Kingdomcity event.

To those who are in that season, wondering why their family and friends are not supporting them, Promise has this piece of advice.  

“Stop expecting them to. Your feelings are valid. Feel them. Process them. Then let it go. Don’t dwell on them for too long. People cannot validate what God commissioned. Only He can.”

The Project J’s range of products – cards, washi tapes, journals – launched on its fifth anniversary.

The Project J’s online store is currently open for sales of its remaining products. 

Read Part Two of this series which delves into the rest of the lessons that a Christian entrepreneur has learnt from operating a popular faith-based business for over a decade here (LINK).

RELATED ARTICLES: 

7 leadership lessons from CEOs who answer to a higher power

What does saying “yes” to Jesus look like?

This beautiful coffee table book tells you who Jesus is in 21 ways