Jason Wong may well be the father of fathering.

In his professional career, he has been a father figure to many incarcerated men who never had loving male influences in their lives, and has also protected vulnerable children and youth.

In his private capacity, he launched a fathering movement, Dads for Life, in Singapore and is now the Chairman of Focus on the Family and a Director with the Centre for Fathering.

Jason became a Christian because Christians at the Overseas Christian Fellowship in Australia shared the Gospel with him when he went abroad to study.

Yet, he maintained that he would not have done any of those things had someone not first pointed him to the ultimate Father: God.

Jason was speaking to nearly 200 financial planners at the recent N5 Conference 2024.

The fourth run of Asia’s only Kingdom-focused conference for financial planners was centred on the theme Clean Hands, Pure Hearts and aimed to help participants blend financial excellence with biblical truths.

“Many conferences and seminars in the marketplace very often are about, ‘How do we make more money?’ Today, we are here to ask, ‘How can we make a difference wherever God has put us?’” said Jason.

Sharing from his personal and professional experiences, he offered 7 principles to hold to as we influence others for Christ.

1. It starts with a spark

Jason began by sharing the way he came to Christ.

As a teenager, he started asking big, existential questions: “Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is this life about?”

In junior college, he said two prayers “to a God I didn’t know”.

“The first was, ‘God, why did You put me here on earth?’”

Jason had always believed that there was a God. As someone who liked to draw, he would often look at paintings to see who had painted them. He also liked science and enjoyed taking things apart to see how they worked, and putting them back together.

“If every painting has a painter, every invention as an inventor, then who is my Creator?” he remembered asking.

“So everything has a purpose,” he told participants. “Things will not work if it doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be for. Of course, it has to be hooked up to a power source.

“So, do we know Who made us? Do we know why we are supposed to be here? Are we hooked up to the power source?”

His second prayer was for God to give him a scholarship to go to university. God answered this prayer and, through it, his first prayer was answered.

When he went to Australia to further his education, students from the Overseas Christian Fellowship sought him out.

“I wasn’t an easy person to reach out to. I’m sure they fasted and prayed for me because I asked very different questions. Because of them, I became a Christian. They passed God’s love to me.”

Their efforts to reach him was the spark that led him to today.

“If that group of older senior Christian students did not target me, there would not be a Yellow Ribbon Project today, there would not be a Dads for Life today.”

2. Impact one life at a time

When Jason started his first posting at Changi Prison, there were 2,400 prisoners. With only eight hours at work a day, he could not speak to everyone. He wondered how large of an impact he could make.

“As a duty officer, as I made my rounds every day, I will just ask, ‘God is there one person, or two or three, you want me to talk to?’

“I would spend that extra minute in every block to ask God, ‘Is there one person out of the 300 (in whose life) I can make a difference? Even if it is a simple question, ‘How are you doing today? Did your family visit you? Is there any request you have?’”

Then came the moment he met the first HIV+ inmate in prison. For an hour a day, the man was allowed out in the yard, where he would walk up and down a small patch of grass.

Jason would often walk with him.

One day, Jason noticed dark rings beneath his eyes.

“I said, ‘You haven’t been sleeping well, is it?’ He said, ‘Sir, cannot sleep. Got dark shadows in my cell. Sir, what can you do?’”

Jason told him that, as a Christian, he would pray to Jesus because the Bible says at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow in heaven and on the earth and under it (Philippians 2:10-11).

“He said, ‘Sir, can I try?’ I said, ‘Sure. You say, ‘In the name of Jesus, get out of my cell.’”

A few days later, Jason saw the man again. He was smiling. “He said, ‘Sir, it worked.’”

Jason then asked him if he wanted to have Jesus to be with him all the days of his life. In time, the man said the Sinner’s Prayer with Jason.

Jason also arranged for him to have Bible Study with a staff from Prison Fellowship Singapore (PFS).

“Impact just one life,” said Jason.

3. Touching one life touches a whole family

Touching one life may seem insignificant, but its impact actually has a ripple effect, said Jason.

The late Rev Henry Khoo, a prison chaplain who once oversaw 12,000 inmates, once told Jason: “You touch one life, you’re touching the whole family. It’s not just 12,000 prisoners, it’s 50,000 lives.”

This was a lesson Jason never forgot.

“Jesus taught thousands but He also made time for the one. He said to Zacchaeus, ‘Come down. Salvation has come to the whole household.’” (Luke 19:9)

4. Every promotion is an opportunity for greater influence

“Each time we get a promotion, it is because God wants us to have a bigger influence for Kingdom impact,” said Jason.

“It’s not so much that we want to unleash our influence for Kingdom impact. It is God who wants to unleash His influence to build His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.”

That is how Jason encouraged the participants to view their work: “I tell people I’m a son doing his Father’s business. Jesus was a Son doing the Father’s business.”

Jason shared what running God’s business might look like: Very often, he would meet ex-offenders who would tell him that they became Christians because they had heard him preach.

Recently, he met one such man who now owns his own business and hires ex-offenders, which make up 80% of his staff.

“He’s passing it on,” said Jason.

5. Begin with one person

In 2019, Jason was wrestling with God over the challenge of evangelism.

That was when God asked him: “Do you think you can bring a pre-believer to Christ if I give you 10 years to do so?”

“Of course,” Jason replied. It was a simple, achievable goal.

That was how the One for Jesus was born. The movement encourages and empowers Christians to reach just one person in the next 10 years.

There may no longer be evangelists who reach thousands. But if thousands reached one each, there would still be thousands saved. “I’m not talking about big stadium events. This is personal evangelism on a mass scale,” said Jason. 

An example he gave was of a young woman who wanted to share the Gospel with her grandmother. However, she could not do so in Hokkien. So, she went to her church to ask if anyone could speak to her grandmother. An old lady volunteered.

“Both of them went. That day, Grandma accepted Christ. You don’t have to do it alone. Two, three, four together.”

6. Seize every opportunity

There is always a chance to share the Gospel at every turn, said Jason.

He recounted the time when he was in the army and assigned to do weekend duties. He could not go to church, but there was always someone in the army with whom he could share the faith. So, that became his focus.

“You don’t even have to go to them. Your Facebook page, don’t keep showing food, your holiday. Share some testimonies, Bible verses.

“Pray, care, share. Pray for the person. As you sit down, listen to the person. Eat (with them). As you eat, the person will share about his life, about his needs. Then you bring that home and pray for the person.

“Serve. Your industry is all about servicing: Serving their financial plans, serving their life goals. At the end of it, share. Share about what God is doing in your life first.

“If you are not excited about God, they will not be excited as well.”

7. Have the Father’s heart for the lost

“The heart of evangelism is the heart of the Father,” said Jason, emphasising that this is the most important principle to influence others for the Kingdom.

Talking about the longing of the father for the return of his prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), Jason said: “The heart of evangelism is the heart of the Father for the lost sons and lost daughters. It’s not about events. It’s not about programmes.

“If we know the heart of the Father, we will go.”

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