At 31st December 2010, All Saints' electoral roll had 450 parishioners, of which 269 were residents of Lindfield.  That means nearly 5% of the adult population of Lindfield (say 6,000) are on the electoral roll of All Saints.  Plus, Lindfield has two other churches focused on the village, another that meets in the village, and a good number of residents that worship at churches outside the parish.

We praise God for such an abundance of Christians and churches.  We also long for the many (still the majority of Lindfield!) who do not know Christ to come to know Him.

However, such numbers stand in stark contrast to the situation in the part of the world that OMF is focused on: East Asia.
For example:
In Japan, there are 24 cities with no church at all, and over half of its 1,020 towns and villages have no church either. Many rural areas are scarcely touched by the gospel - including many of the areas hit by the recent devastating tsunami.

Indonesia's huge population (232 million) comprises over 750 distinct people groups.  Of these, there are 128 people groups larger than 10,000 people with a Christian  population of less than 1%.  Together, these 128 groups account for 60% of the country's people (i.e., 140 million people).  Thirty of these groups have no known believers or full-time Christian workers.

There are vigorous churches in many of the peoples of East Asia. South Korea (which now sends out more missionaries than the UK) has one of the largest. However, there are still many unreached peoples, where - if someone does not cross barriers of language, culture, ethnicity and prejudice - they will not hear of Christ.
As the apostle Paul wrote:
"How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?  And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?  And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?  And how can anyone preach unless they are sent."              


Ian Prescott