Defining the church is the first obvious step in understanding church planting. Our natural tendency is to envision planting congregations that look and act like our home church, even though the church may be planted in another culture or under very different circumstances. One tacitly assumes that this is the best or only biblical form of the church. But what is the essential nature of the church? In this section of the lecture Craig Ott shares the theological and practical definitions of the church and highlights the most important points. He takes the definition of the church and turns it into the definition of church planting ministry.