The need and importance of ecclesiology: Whose story are we?

Herein is our problem, my problem:

“Ecclesiology is first of all about the church’s identity—who we are and who[m] we serve. And if the biblical story is not the place where our identity is forged, then by default this place will be somewhere else, almost certainly in our cultural story and social location. That will mean we are no longer the people we are called to be and will be serving the wrong master” (Michael W. Goheen, The Church and Its Vocation: Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology)

And this is why church, that is ecclesiology, is so so important.

I have been wrong on many things theological over the years (e.g., nature of man and nature of sin, God's sovereignty and election, the importance of the Lord's supper, and too many more to be embarrassed over, which I hope I know better now), but the biggest “didn’t get” was “church.”

I, like most of us, define “church” by and through our culture, our sociological history (i.e., our story), even my personal story, and my social location as (now don’t get offended, or maybe you should)—my social location as a white, suburbanite, living in America, and a person within a westward marching, European cultural history (story).

Really need to rethink church and do so within the context of the biblical story.