The Episcopal Church’s World Mission Sunday, an annual observance designated by the 1997 General Convention, occurs on the Last Sunday in Epiphanytide – this year on Feb. 15. But it can also be celebrated on any other Sunday of your choosing!
Epiphany celebrates the showing forth of the light of Christ in all the world – over all the diversity of nationalities, cultures, races, languages and ethnicities. This is symbolized in the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem – these non-Jewish foreigners, probably from Persia, were now beholding the light of the Christ Child.
The theme of Christ’s glory being shown forth in the world culminates every year in the Transfiguration of Jesus on the last Sunday of the season. Jesus was transfigured by the glory of God in order that he might be strengthened to undertake the last and most challenging stage of his missional work, which took him to the cross.
In the collect of the day, we pray that we may be changed into Christ’s likeness, “from glory to glory,” an echo of 2 Corinthians 3:18. God likewise invites us into God’s mission of transforming the world.
Here are some avenues to explore for celebrating World Mission Sunday:
• Highlight your congregation’s existing global engagement by inviting parishioners to talk about the initiatives they’re involved in – in a forum, during the announcements or during coffee hour.
• Invite parishioners from other countries to talk about the life of the church in their homeland – how people worship, how they express community, how they participate in God’s mission.
• Invite an Episcopal Volunteer in Mission or a Young Adult Service Corpsmissioner to talk with the congregation about their work on Zoom or another platform during the Sunday Forum or in an informal coffee hour conversation. For EVIM, the Office of Global Partnerships can help. For YASC, contact mission personnel officer Elizabeth Boe: eboe@episcopalchurch.org.
• View and discuss any of the short My Mission Story videos compiled by the Global Episcopal Mission Network (GEMN), in which individual Episcopalians talk about how God drew them into world mission.
• View and discuss any of the short videos compiled by the Episcopal Church’s Office of Global Partnerships, in which Young Adult Service Corps missionaries look back on their experiences and learnings.
• Show one of the many short videos about mission work from Missio, the Global Mission Conferences sponsored by GEMN. The 2022 conference on Women in Mission, featured work in Iraq, Haiti, Guatemala, India, Madagascar, Pakistan, Cuba and Costa Rica. Explore video resources from the 2023 Missio on ‘Mission: Journey into Healing.’ or the 2024 Missio on ‘Mission in Tension Times,’ which included presentations from Haiti, Pakistan, Sudan and Israel/Palestine. You can use World Mission Sunday to convene a small-group study of global mission.
• Consider using missional prayers and other liturgical resources for World Mission Sunday. During the Prayers of the People, pray for missionaries, specific mission initiatives, and guidance in becoming more globally engaged.
• Gather a group for the 4-week course, Becoming a World where Love is the Way: Guiding Principles for World Mission, developed by the Standing Commission on World Mission (SCWM).
• Gather a group for the 7-week course, Questing: The Way of Love in Global Mission, developed by the Global Episcopal Mission Network (GEMN) and available from Amazon.
• View and discuss Going Global with God, four 5-minute videos from ChurchNext that feature Titus Presler talking about four missional topics: Mission as Ministry in the Dimension of Difference; The Poverty Captivity of Mission; The Healing of Companionship and Accompaniment in Mission; The Journey’s End is Reconciliation
• Use the 30-day Global Mission Cycle of Prayer, which lifts up the wide range of global mission initiatives around the Episcopal Church.
• View and discuss any of the mission topics on the Blog at the webpage of the Episcopal Church’s Office of Global Partnerships.
Photo: Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, has longstanding missional relationships in Uganda, Sudan and Honduras.