What Do I Understand the Church to Be?

I understand the church to be all of the people of God plus the institutions of the church, with God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit working in and through all of us to bring us closer to God, who is love, and away from all evil, and that through the teaching, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we may gain eternal happiness in heaven with Him in the next life.
The church began with Jesus Christ; "And I say to thee:
That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it". …