One morning in the state of New York, I woke with an unexpected image in my mind's eye. It was a young man asking, "What IS the church, anyway?" He seemed to represent the several teenagers traveling with their families on a church history tour that had just gotten under way.

The day before, we had been at the Whitmer home and other sites in New York. We had repeatedly referred to "the church." It was lost from the earth anciently. It was restored. It was organized. People joined it. People persecuted it. It met. It moved. It grew. It is true.

At daybreak, we would board a bus and move on to Kirtland, Ohio. That morning I realized that during our trip of 250 miles, we should try to start answering that simple question. It might take the whole tour. It might take the rest of our lives. Just what IS the church, anyway?

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