Mission Sunday

Definition and Meaning

Mission Sunday is a Sunday that a church sets apart to remember and emphasize missions in a special way. On this day the church prays for mission fields at home and abroad and for missionaries, hears preaching on the theme of missions, and takes up a separate offering for mission work. Unlike Christmas or Easter, it is not a traditional feast observed by the whole church. Rather, it is a special Sunday that a denomination or an individual congregation establishes as needed, so its name, date, and frequency of observance differ from church to church.

Biblical and Historical Background

Churches that observe Mission Sunday commonly cite two passages as its biblical basis. One is the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), in which Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples of all nations; the other is his promise that they would be witnesses "unto the uttermost part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). The church at Antioch, which fasted and prayed and then sent out Barnabas and Saul (Acts 13:1-3), is cited as a model of a church jointly sending out missionaries. Romans 10:14-15, which teaches that there can be no preaching unless some are sent, is frequently invoked as grounds for supporting missions.

The practice of churches regularly praying and giving for missions spread along with the expansion of Protestant foreign missions from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. After William Carey and others founded the Baptist Missionary Society in England in 1792, one denomination after another organized mission societies, and this period is often called the Great Century of Missions. In the Catholic Church, Pope Pius XI instituted World Mission Sunday (World Mission Day) in 1926. The Catholic Church observes it on the penultimate Sunday of October, and the Catholic Church in Korea does likewise.

Not long after receiving missionaries, the Korean church began sending out missionaries of its own. In 1907 the Independent Presbytery of Korea sent Yi Ki-poong as a missionary to Jeju. In the 1910s the Presbyterian General Assembly is reported to have sent missionaries to the Shandong region of China.

Practice in the Korean Church

Denominational general assemblies often include Mission Sunday in the annual calendar they issue and encourage member churches to observe it. Names vary and include "World Mission Sunday," "Foreign Mission Sunday," and "Home Mission Sunday," and dates differ by denomination. Even when a denomination sets a date, whether and how to observe it is often left to each congregation.

Common practices in individual congregations include the following:

• Inviting missionaries the church supports to preach or give mission reports.
• Sharing videos from mission fields or reports from short-term missions, and offering intercessory prayer for mission fields.
• Receiving a missions offering, or taking pledges toward the following year's missions support.
• Holding Sunday school events that introduce the culture and daily life of mission fields.

Some churches observe Mission Sunday monthly on a fixed day, such as the first Sunday of each month, and receive a separate missions offering. Others hold a large annual event lasting several days under a name such as "Missions Festival" or "Missions Conference."