Dr Bobby Sng was a missional leader in his influence over many generations of tertiary students in Singapore and beyond to channel their talents and training to be an impact in society for Christian witness. 

He was born in Singapore on July 3, 1936 as the third son and the elder of a pair of twins, in a family of five children of Mr and Mrs Sng Choon Yee.^[1] Mr Sng had arrived in Singapore alone as a young teenager from Fujian in China and eventually became the Assistant Secretary of Chinese Affairs in the British colonial government and the official interpreter for the British.   

The Sng family residence was on Wilkie Road during Sng’s early childhood days. His parents had allowed the children to attend the Sunday School at the neighbouring Christian Assembly despite not belonging to the Christian faith.  Nonetheless, it was at home that Sng made an explicit decision to accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour. He and his twin brother and younger sister were informed of the Gospel by an elderly aunt who had come from China and lived with the family. She also told her nephew about the special calling from God to Christian service that he should obey. From that day, Sng was determined to serve God with his life.  He was eventually baptised on February 14, 1954 at the Christian Assembly at Wilkie Road.

Sng received his education in a Methodist school, the Anglo-Chinese School. He not only excelled in his studies but also won accolades as a chess player and high jumper in athletics. He was also active in church work and joined the young people’s ministry team in outdoor preaching at various open-air sites around Singapore.  

Medical training and missional service 

In 1956, Sng entered the then University of Malaya in Singapore to study medicine and was introduced to the Varsity Christian Fellowship (VCF) which was a student-led and student-organised campus society with an evangelical emphasis. He subsequently became the VCF’s first secretary and then its chairman. 

Sng was part of a prayer group in his medical class where some of them had decided they would choose to serve in small outlying towns rather than remain in the cities to work after graduation. In 1963, whilst completing his medical housemanship, the leader of a small church in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia approached Sng to help the church. He agreed to take up the challenge and be self-supporting financially by starting a small medical clinic in one of the small towns. 

In 1964, Sng married his former medical classmate, Ivy Peck Tsun Yee, and together, the newly-weds went on to lead Sunday services and Sunday School at the Brethren Gospel Hall. Apart from medical work, he also engaged in community work with the town folk, villagers, tea plantation and farm workers for the next five and a half years. Sng was also invited to teach Bible Knowledge as an examination subject in the local secondary school. He also accepted invitations to speak at conferences in North Malaysia organised by the Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES) and the Scripture Union (SU) of Malaysia^[2] Dr Ivy Peck was the medical and health officer of the District of Cameron Highlands from 1965 to 1969.  

In 1969, Sng and his family relocated back to Singapore for him to take up an appointment as the first General Secretary (GS) of Singapore FES and Ivy eventually worked as a government pathologist. They have three daughters and six grandchildren.

Missional partnerships in a life of Christian witness

Sng was the GS of FES for 19 years which included a brief period between 1978 and 1981 when he was concurrently the Graduate Secretary of the Graduates’ Christian Fellowship (GCF). As the GS, he provided leadership to a growing team of young staff workers who visited the various Christian Fellowships that were members of FES. When he stepped down as GS in 1988, he resumed the GCF Graduate Secretary position till 1992. Although “retired” from fulltime work with the FES and the GCF, he remained a sought after Bible expositor and adviser to the student and graduate ministries, including serving as the FES president between 1997 and 2002 and then as one of its vice-presidents from 2002 to 2008. 

Sng also contributed to the global student movement through his service on the Executive Committee of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). He was a committee member from 1971 to 1975, the Vice-Chairperson from 1979 to 1983 and then finally serving a third term from 1995 to 1999. He inadvertently earned international respect for not only his leadership in decision-making processes but also as a regular speaker and Bible expositor at various IFES mission and teaching conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. 

However, it was not only the FES and IFES communities that Sng shared God’s Word with.  He was often invited to the Sunday pulpits of various Singapore congregations including a recurring monthly appointment to preach at his home church, the Christian Assembly Hall at Wilkie Terrace – a commitment he kept faithfully for more than 50 years.^[3]

In addition to serving in the student world, Sng also served at different times on the executive boards of the Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore (EFO), the Singapore Scripture Union and the Singapore Home Office of the Overseas Missionary Fellowship. 

Sng also served on the board of the Bible Society of Singapore as its President between 2002 and 2012 and then as an Advisor to the Society from 2012 to 2019. The Bible Society credits Sng for inspiring them with his “great passion and zeal” and enabling the Society to “spearhead” their missional service to disadvantaged communities beyond Singapore and into the region.^[4] The Society also published a series of books on the stories of Jesus, the Old Testament and the Church as told through postage stamps. Sng wrote the text and illustrated the text with a selection of stamps from his personal collection, adding yet another dimension to the nature and scope of Christian witness. 

By 2017, Sng was increasingly compelled to step away from public involvement as he began to feel more ill and frail until the Lord called His servant home to eternal rest on October 14, 2019.

Influencing students through preaching and writing 

Sng wrote, when he was surmising his 60 years of involvement in student ministry, that, “I have had the privilege of reaching out to thousands of students… all these students, in one way or another, have made an impact and have shaped Singapore to what it is today. I thank God for this.”^[5]

As an undergraduate, Sng had learned to reflect on the Bible texts alongside reading Christian literature and also literature that was critical of the Christian faith. He would often cite how using the daily Bible study guide, Search the Scriptures^[6] and reading Bertrand Russell’s Why I am not a Christian^[7] during the late 1950s, taught him to think critically about his faith. He challenged students that it was not enough to just read the Bible text but they needed to “grapple” with making sense of their faith in the world they live in and engage with. Just as participating in the VCF had formed him as a Christian leader, he sought to share that same formation with students he worked with.

In his passionate concern to guide students to cultivate a biblical perspective in engaging with specific issues of Christian witness in their campus ministry, Sng started to capture this process in the written word.^[8] In the 1970s, he wrote at least two evangelistic tracts, a Bible study guide on Genesis and by the 1980s, he was writing monographs on subjects such as Christian witness and evangelism, the relationship between God’s will and human decision making and also, how students could minister in both the parachurch organisation and in their churches. The cumulative impact of both his preaching and publications was to articulate and flesh out the meaning and scope of Christian witness in society.  

Christian witness by proclamation and compassionate service 

In the 1980s and 1990s, many Singapore churches were growing in numbers and it seemed that in order to know how to move forward, it would help the Church in Singapore to know the story of where and how they had come about. In 1977, Sng began the work of delving into library and church archives and to conduct interviews and surveys with stakeholders. In His Good Time: The Story of the Church in Singapore, 1819-1978 was published by 1982 and was followed up with a third edition in 2003. Knowing our story and appreciating our identity paved the way to discerning the world we are rooted in. Sng coordinated and edited two volumes, Church and Culture: Singapore Context published in 1983 and Church and Society: Singapore Context in 1991. These volumes sought to address pressing questions for Christian discipleship and witness in response to social change and the introduction of new laws in the country. 

The 1980s and 1990s were not only decades of church growth but also changes in perceptions of how religion and race may or may not relate to the state in the context of a pluralistic society. Sng documented how Christian witness may sometimes mean stating the Christian perspective to governing authorities. These ventures were sensitive processes and were made in various ways, sometimes in the form of research papers and at other times in private conversations. The Abortion Bill of 1985 and the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Bill 1990 were two occasions when presentations and representations were prepared on the Christian viewpoint.^[9] Sng reflected that regardless of the Christian community’s desired outcomes, “a stand has sometimes to be taken, for conscience sake.”^[10]

Christian witness was not only about speaking a Christian perspective but it was also acting with compassion to serve the disadvantaged and marginalised communities within the larger society. Sng proffered to tertiary students and graduates this horizon to Christian witness on the principle that Jesus had taught in some of his parables that “to whom much is given, much is expected.”^[11] 

In the 1980s, when there was a growing concern for the needs of an aging population in Singapore, the GCF responded by setting up a working group, in partnership with the Singapore Nurses’ Christian Fellowship (SNCF), to study and investigate how they could participate in addressing this social need. Eventually, by 1991, a shared vision had emerged and a resolution was made to establish a new society dedicated to setting up and running a 200-bedded home for the elderly sick to be known as the St Luke’s Hospital for the Elderly (SLH). It was envisioned that SLH was to be a home that also offered professional medical care to the elderly sick. 

This envisioning started a complex undertaking requiring tenacity and perseverance from all involved. There was a need to harness a range of professional experience, training and skills, and to present the theological basis that would build a wide-based church partnership, not to mention the work of bridge-building with government bodies and grassroot communities as well. It was a commitment that persevered and made the SLH vision a reality when it opened in 1996.  

In recollecting the history of SLH some two decades later, the hospital’s 2019 commemorative book described Bobby Sng as “instrumental in looking for partners among churches and organisations to become foundation members, sending out letters, sharing at churches and meeting leaders”.^[12] On hindsight, Sng’s theological lens of an enlarged Christian witness had inspired the architects of the SLH vision of the 1990s with the faith to meet a significant challenge.

Bobby Sng Ewe Kong list of publications^[13]

Evangelistic tracts

We Want an Answer. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1970, reprinted 1980. (Over 33,000 copies were printed.)

The Man We Cannot Ignore. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1972, reprinted 1980. (Over 45,000 copies were printed.)

Monographs and Bible Study guides

Handbook for Christian Leaders. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1962.

Christian Imperative for Today. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1974.

In the Beginning God: A Bible Study Guide on Genesis 1 to 12:3. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1976.

The Student and His Church. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1984, reprinted 1986. 

Decision Making: Seeking to Know God's Will. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 1984, reprinted 1991.

Books 

In His Good Time: The Story of the Church in Singapore 1819-1979. First edition. Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 1980. (The Chinese translation of the first edition was published in August 1987.) 

Co-authored with You Poh Seng. Religious Trends in Singapore. Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship & FES Singapore, 1982. (The Chinese translation was published by FES Singapore, Chinese Section in 1983.)

To Whom Much is Given: The History of Graduates’ Christian Fellowship in Singapore 1955-1992. Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 1992.

In His Good Time: The Story of the Church in Singapore 1819-1992. Second edition. Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 1993.

I Must Sow the Seed: Liang Afa – China’s first preacher. Singapore: Trinity Theological College, 1998.

The Story of Jesus: The Bible on Stamps. 耶稣的故事: 邮票传述圣经 (In English and Chinese languages) Singapore: Bible Society of Singapore, 2000. 

The Story of the Old Testament: The Bible on Stamps 旧约的故事: 邮票传述圣经  (In English and Chinese languages) Singapore: Bible Society of Singapore, 2002.

In His Good Time: The Story of the Church in Singapore 1819-2002. Third edition. Singapore: Bible Society of Singapore, 2003.

The Story of the Church: The Bible on Stamps. 教会的故事:邮票传述圣经 (In English and Chinese languages) Singapore: Bible Society of Singapore, 2003.

Listen to Him! The Last words of Jesus from the Cross. Singapore: Armour Publishing, 2008.

The Greatest Story As Told Through Stamps. New edition. Singapore: Bible Society and Genesis Books (Armour Publishing), 2008. 

Changing Times, Unchanging Word. Singapore: Bible Society of Singapore & Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 2014.

As editor

Church and Culture: Singapore Context. Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 1983.

Church and Society: Singapore Context. Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 1991.

Many Faces, One Faith. Singapore: The National Council of Churches of Singapore, 2004.

As contributor

“Dilemma in Asia” (pages 31-36) and “Fellowship of Evangelical Students” (pages 37-38) in FES Singapore, Editor. Change and Challenge: Christian Thinking on Contemporary Issues.  FES Singapore, 1969.

“The First Commandment.” (pages 1-14) in A Light to my Path: Reflections on the Ten Commandments. Edited by Lawrence Chan and Aw Swee Eng, Singapore: Graduates’ Christian Fellowship, 1983.

“Singapore” (page 759) in New 20th Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (Baker Reference Library, Book 4).  Edited by J. D. Douglas and Robert G. Clouse. Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 1990.

“Chew, Benjamin” (page 138) “Singapore/Malaysia” (under “Communism” pages 204-205) “Eagles Communications” (page 256) “Goh Hood Keng” (page 310) “Leong Kung Fa” (page 482) “Song Hoot Kiam (pages 787-788) and “Song Ong Siang” (page 788) in A Dictionary of Asian Christianity. Edited by Scott W. Sunquist,‎ David Wu Chu Sing and John Chew Hiang Chea. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.

“Looking Back and Forward” (pages 37-39) and “Student Work: A Great Door to Effective Work” (pages 45-47) in Vision and Continuity: In Our Time. Singapore, Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 2009.

“Decision Making: Seeking to know God’s Will.” Pages 20-30 in Flux and Beyond. Singapore: Fellowship of Evangelical Students, 2016. (This is the condensed version of the original monograph published in 1984)