An Idiots Guide to Theology: What is the Church?

What I believe the church is, is a body of believers striving to find definition and hoping on the ideas of a radical leader and social outcast. The church is an extension of the life and the ideas set forth by this radical teacher, who then died for his cause. The church is a place where that life is shared in the minds and hearts of people who believe this radicals teaching. The church is not a place or a location but a living being. It is a being with emotion, full of life, and vitality. We can see this for in the fact that it is timeless. From the churches humble beginnings in houses to the massive churches and then back to the houses, in all shapes and forms the church is ever-moving and ever changing, and if it were to stop true church would stop. The church that was set up was to be this way. It is a persons desire to be in communion with this radical teacher, not so much on a specific doctrine that he was teaching but more of the general ideals that he set forth. I believe often times it is the doctrine arguments that are really just specific traditions to specific institutions and places of worship. With the arguments about tradition our worship and gathering and sharing in the good community set up by this radical become very convoluted and are not necessarily unheard but are not as strong as when a church body is in good communion with one another. On Early Church writer said that the church is the pure bride of Christ, although it is a beautiful thought, when that belief goes to far it will slow the progress of the church and will make it an uninviting institution. An opposite opinion was that it was a place of bridge building between the followers and the people outside the teachings, again a wonderful thought if let to go too far the church could be infected by ideals that are not in synch with the teachings of the radical leader. Like I said before the church is a living entity that does not waver with time but rather flows with the waves of time.