Don't let your assumptions about the End Times define the Church.

I could have entitled this post, "Don't let your Eschatology determine your Ecclesiology", but that would probably have made most people skip reading it.  How we define the Church is a very important part of our theology as Christians.  It is imperative that we work together with everyone else who is a genuine part of the Church of Jesus Christ in order to fulfill our mission to share the Gospel.  There is danger in defining the Church too narrowly, which would turn those who are supposed to be our brothers and sisters into rivals, or at worst enemies, and there is danger in defining the Church too broadly, which would turn those who are supposed to be the object of our witness to the Gospel into those we wrongly assume to have already accepted it.  For a doctrine this important, we ought not allow anything other than the entire teaching of Scripture on the subject to be our guide.
In reality, however, a significant segment of those claiming to be Christians are allowing their assumptions about the End Times to be the most significant factor in determining their conclusions to these very important questions.  Most of those who believe that we're currently entering into the final days before the beginning of the Apocalypse also believe that one of the supporting evidences of that conclusion is their belief that 99% of all those who think that they are Christians, are in reality not.  This pessimism about the current state of the Church is a reflection of a theology of the End Times that requires the Church to be in a dire state prior to the return of Christ.  If the return of Christ is imminent, then the Church must be in a dire state, and therefore the definition of those who truly belong to the Church is made to fit that expectation in a predictably gloomy fashion.
There is, of course, great danger in making assumptions about when Christ will return, something that Jesus himself warned about.  One example of that danger is the pessimism and antagonism it fosters among those have convinced themselves that his return is imminent.  The Church, all of the Church, ought to be working together for the sake of the kingdom.  The question of how we define the Church is far too important to let it be influenced by anything other than the Word of God.