The blog Inhabitatio Dei has a post describing a typology of ecclesiology, laid out along a “high-low” axis and a “strong-weak” axis:

High Church Ecclesiology: High view of church history and tradition. Emphasizes the liturgy and above all the Eucharist. Churches are generally structured episcopally (i.e. through a hierarchy of bishops who stand in communion with each other). Emphasizes salvation as membership in the church through participation in the sacraments. Generally holds to infant baptism. Close connection between baptism and initiation into the broad community of faith.

Low Church Ecclesiology: Generally suspicious of history and tradition. Emphasizes the Bible as the church’s ultimate authority and preaching is more central then the Eucharist or the liturgy. Churches tend to be structured congregationally (i.e. governed by the local congregation itself or through one or more elders appointed by congregations). Emphasizes salvation as the subjective appropriation and confession of faith in Christ. Generally holds to believers’ baptism. Close connection between salvation, baptism, and committed discipleship in community.

Strong Ecclesiology: Holds a high view of the role of the church in the economy of salvation. Understands that the church is the means by which God is at work in the world. A strong view of the church as the ongoing embodied presence of Christ in the world. The church participates in the mission of God to redeem the world. Membership in the visible church community is indispensable to Christian life and the shape of Christian salvation.

Weak Ecclesiology: Holds a humble and limited view of God’s role for the church in his plan of salvation. The church exists to strengthen and instruct the believer and to witness to God’s work of salvation that takes place solely through God’s action. The church does not participate in God’s action, but points away from itself to God’s action outside of human effort. The emphasis is on the invisible church, the universal body of all people who believe in Christ throughout the world. All Christians are members of this church and that is what is primary. Membership in a local congregation is for edification and growth, but is not central to salvation.

I’m definitely high-church, but I’m not happy with the characterization of either strong or weak ecclessiology put forth here. For instance, I would definitely agree that the church is a means by which God is at work in the world, maybe even the primary means, but not that it’s the only means. Same goes for the church as the presence of Christ: I wouldn’t say the church is the embodied presence of Christ, but I definitely think the church is a sign of that presence.

In other words, I tend to see the church in quasi-sacramental terms: it’s the visible sign of God’s presence and activity in the world, but not in such a way that it can lay exclusive claim to them. Or, to put a Lutheran spin on it, the church is the place where the proclamation of God’s grace takes place, even though that grace is, in itself, an omni-present reality. The proclamation is necessary because it’s how faith is created in us, but it’s not constitutive of God’s love for us. What I want to avoid is, on the one hand, a purely contractual model of the church where it’s entirely a human creation, and on the other a “transactional” model where what counts is getting hooked in to the metaphysical mojo that only the church can dispense. Yet another metaphor: the church is an outcropping of the age to come, a sign of the invisible made visible.