Ekklesia is not a religious place of worship

In the Classical Greek time, a few centuries before Christ there was the emergence of city-states.  In the opinion of some, this was the precursor to democracy.  In the cities, all residents were by default, citizens and equal participants in the making of law and judicial decisions.  On a regular bases these citizens (all the people) would gather in a theater to discuss politics, enact laws and make judgments.  The entry into the theater was a long brick tunnel.  On the bricks were chiseled all the names of the citizens of the city.  On the way into the theater each citizen would show the brick with their name on it to prove their right to enter the arena. 

When it was time for a meeting of citizens in the arena, a messenger would walk up and down the streets “calling out” to the citizens in the houses and shops to come to the arena for the next meeting. 

When a citizen of the city committed a misdeed of significant infamy, the gathered citizens would listen to the accusations made by the witnesses, and then revoke the rights of citizenship from the individual for a period of time or permanently depending on the misdeed.  The removing of the chiseled name from the tunnel marked the ending of citizenship. 

As time developed these Greek citizens began to call the meeting the “calling out” or the “called out.”  The Greek word for this is Ekklesia [Ek means out, Klesia means “call or to call”] 

When the Romans took over the show, they kept the word Ekklesia.  Applying it to any or all government or political events.  Town councils, provincial councils, courthouses were all called “Ekklesia.”  There was not a single documented time that the word Ekklesia was ever used in a religious context except once in regard to a business meeting. 

So when Christ said “On this rock I will build my Ekklesia,” he was not talking about a "religious event or place" as the  translated poorly translated word “Church” would imply.  He was not talking about a worship center, a place for religious homilies, or a place for preaching. 

He was talking about the word in exactly the way it was used at the time, as is verified by the rest the sentence.  “And I will give to it (Ekklesia) the keys to the Kingdom, and what ever is bound on earth will have been bound in heaven and whatever is loosed on earth will have been loosed in heaven.”  (Binding and Loosening are terms used in rabbinical literature for judicial decision making, which was the political role of the Sanhedrin.)  In the second mention of the Ekklesia, Christ indicates how to remove one from the “arena” if they do not “listen to the Ekklesia.” 

In the time of Christ, you could not have an Ekklesia unless you have a kingdom in which to exercise its judicial meaning.  The fact that modern forms of "christian" activity centers around "places of religious worship" rather than places of "political/judicial decision-making" shows just how far "we" have digressed from the mandates of the King of Kings.