Lived Ecclesial Images and Theological Models: A Dialogue between Social-Scientific Inquiry and Ecclesiology

How can social-scientific inquiry and systematic ecclesiology be brought into constructive dialogue? This paper explores the relationship between lived Ecclesial imagination and theological models of the Church by placing empirical research into conversation with classical ecclesiology. Drawing on mixed quantitative and qualitative methods—including a congregational survey and follow-up interviews in a Taiwanese church—the study identifies “the church as home” as a dominant lived Ecclesial image shaping belonging, care, worship, and communal identity. Engaging Avery Dulles’s Models of the Church as a theological framework, the paper argues that classical ecclesiology has tended to privilege institutional and corporate metaphors while under-theologizing domestic and relational dimensions of ecclesial life. The findings demonstrate how empirical research can function not merely as illustration but as a generative partner in ecclesiology, prompting the refinement of theological models by attending to operative ecclesial imaginaries within lived Christian communities.