Usually refers to the theological study of the Christian Church. However, when the word was coined in England in the early 1840s, it was defined as the science of the building and decoration of church buildings and it is still, though rarely, used in this sense.

In its theological sense, ecclesiology deals with the origins of Christianity, its relationship to Jesus, its role in salvation, its polity, its discipline, its destiny, and its leadership. Since different ecclesiologies give shape to very different institutions, the word may also refer to a particular church or denomination’s character, self-described or otherwise – hence phrases such as Roman Catholic ecclesiology, Lutheran ecclesiology, and ecumenical ecclesiology.

Seeing the world through the lenses of your own people or culture such that your culture always looks best and becomes the pattern everyone else should fit into. Sometimes what we think of as the gospel truth is merely the gospel contextualized into our culture.

By no means is ethnocentrism restricted to the majority culture in a country, but it is a nearly universal tendency among humans.

Someone who has left his or her home country to live and work in another country. When we visit another country, we call ourselves expatriates or expats for short.

Sometimes Christians can be considered expatriates everywhere in the world, because our true home is in Jesus, so we are strangers in the world.