What is the Church? This can be a very deep question, or rather simple, depending on the context, theology, and general understanding of Scripture and faith. In my personal experience, most members of the congregations I grew up in, if asked this question, would point to the church building or the sanctuary. This is not so surprising in my opinion when you consider the magnificent monuments we have built as homes for God. As a child, I would have answered exactly the same way as most members of a congregation, and it was only later, as an adult, that I understood "church" not as a physical building, but much more. A very common answer to this question has been that the Church is "God's people" or even "God's chosen people." I prefer, however, the definition of the Church as "the community of Christian faith", a much more inclusive definition than the definitions mentioned previously. In the second chapter of his work entitled An Introduction to Ecclesiology, theologian Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen discusses the idea of ​​"The Church as People of God", a Roman Catholic ecclesiology. Kärkkäinen writes about the controversy between a Christ-centered and a Spirit-centered ecclesiology that was present in the early and later ecclesiologies of the Roman Catholic Church. He goes on to mention a problematic reason for a Spirit-centered ecclesiology when he identifies that: "In the New Testament, the Church is never called the 'body of the Spirit,' but rather the body of Christ . If we understand “the body of Christ” to be the group of people who believe in salvation through Christ, then that would support my understanding of what the Church is. The potential problem lies in context and content. How we interpret...... middle of paper ...... same otherwise the church could not claim to be the body of Christ. And as the body of Christ, the Church should be an inclusive community of Christian faith, otherwise it would once again be in conflict with the mission of Jesus Christ. Works CitedGreen, Chris E. "'The Body of Christ, the Spirit of Communion': Rethinking Pentecostal Ecclesiology in Conversation with Robert Jenson. Journal of Pentecostal Theology 20, no. 1 (2011): 15-26.Kärkkäinen, Veli-Matti. An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical. Amazon Kindle Edition ed. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009. “The Established Church and Evangelical Theology: The Ecclesiology of John Wesley." International Review of Systematic Theology 12, no. 4 (2010): 420-434. Williams, Joseph L. "The New Ecclesiology and the Postmodern Era." Review and Expositor 107, no. 1 (2010): 33-40.