Mission and Missions
One may wonder the reason for all the fuss about it. After all, in English, adding an “s” to a word simply changes it from singular to plural, but while it is true that the plural for mission is missions, the meaning of the two words is totally different. The word “mission” is comes from the Latin word “mission” which means sending away.1 Mission is among other things, sending someone out to perform a special duty or function. Mission also refers to a ministry commissioned be a religious organization to carry out humanitarian activity or propagate its faith. In a secular setting, mission entails sending someone to carry out and activity or performs a service such as military, diplomatic, and space missionaries.
“Missions” on the other hand refers to organized missionary work, especially for spreading the word of God.2 Garry Friesen defines missions as “Christian missions is the spread of the Gospel to those who are non-believers of Christ around in accordance to the command of Christ.”3 Gordon C. Olson on the other hand defines missions as “the whole endeavor, task, and program of the Church of Jesus Christ to reach out people across cultural and geographic boundaries by sending missionaries to evangelize to people who have little opportunity or have never heard of the saving gospel.4 In summary, missions is an attempt to reach the lost whenever they are with the words of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to build faith in new believers. In distinguishing between mission and missions, it can be said that mission refers to a specific task while missions refers to the overall task of church planting, evangelism, and the nurturing of believers.
In my opinion, not everyone should be a missionary because, when he wrote the book of Romans, Paul recruited only some people to take him in his missions. He did not say that he intend to recruit all Christians to take him to his missions in Spain. This is because there should be division of labor in the Christian church, where some should be left just there to perform other duties. If all go to missionary work, none will be left to perform other responsibilities in the society and the church.
References
Friesen, Garry. Decision Making and the Will of God. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Publishers, 2004.
Olson, C. Gordon, and Fanning, Don. What in the World Is God Doing? ""? The Essentials of Global Missions: An Introductory Guide. 6th ed. Cedar Knolls, NJ: Global Gospel Publishers, 2011.
