As I am currently reading through term papers, I occasionally come across jewels from students or from teachers of the past. The following is from a dead teacher, Lesslie Newbigin …
The Church is the pilgrim people of God. It is on the move – hastening to the ends of the earth to beseech all men to be reconciled to God, and hastening to the end of the time to meet its Lord who will gather all into one. Therefore the nature of the Church is never to be finally defined in static terms, but only in terms of that to which it is going [...] When the Church ceases to be one, or ceases to be missionary, it contradicts its own nature. Yet the Church is not defined by what it is, but by that End to which it moves. And the power of the End now works in the Church, the power of the Holy Spirit who is the earnest of the inheritance still to be revealed. (The Household of God, pp. 18-19).
Thank you, Chad.