The nature of the church, that is its composition and the subsequent implications of that design, is a subject inherent to any discussion about the Christian faith. The church, in its broadest application, is a community, and taken together the Christian community is synonymous with the Christian Church. Thus, it is important to establish what constitutes "Christian" in order to differentiate between churches that claim to be Christian and churches which are in practice Christian. An understanding of the nature and functions of the church as described in the Bible will necessarily impose conditions upon what constitutes "Christian", as the Church cannot refer to the Christian community if that community is not in fact Christian. Thus the Church, however defined, is a component of the compr