Why Church Isn't Church: Recovering the True Meaning of Ekklesia

Here's something that might shock you: the word "church" doesn't actually translate ekklesia well at all. In fact, it doesn't really translate it much at all.

The word "church" comes through Latin—from Kirk to church—and traces back to Kiriakos, which means "house of the Lord." But that's not what ekklesia meant. Not even close.

Ekklesia is a Greek word that means "summoned to come together"—called out to assemble. Think "Avengers, assemble!" That's the idea. It was a civic assembly gathered to do business, not a building you visited once a week.

When the Greeks instituted democracy in Athens, they formed a civic assembly where people would convene to do the business of the city. They called it ekklesia. The Romans loved the concept and adopted it throughout their empire. It was like what we'd call a parliament, legislature, or Congress—people gathering to deliberate and make decisions.

Now here's where it gets even more interesting. About 250 years before Jesus, when Jewish rabbis translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint), they chose the word ekklesia to translate a specific Hebrew word: the word for assembly.

The first official ekklesia in Israel's history was at Mount Sinai. The entire congregation was there, but then 70 elders were summoned to come up the mountain with Moses and Aaron. They met with God on the mountain and had dinner with Him—which is a wild story! That was the first official ekklesia.

So when Jesus said, "I will build my ekklesia," every Jew standing there knew exactly what He meant. He was saying: "Whereas Israel's congregation has been assembled around the temple, I am the new temple, and I am assembling the congregation of my people around me."

From Religious Theater to Divine Council

What Jesus was not building was a place for religious theater. He wasn't creating an event where we come watch professionals "do church" while we sit as spectators.

Yet that's exactly what we've turned it into. We come, we check off our little checkbox—45 minutes, an hour, two hours depending on your tradition. If we're really committed, maybe we'll serve by teaching a class or cleaning out trash cans. But we're still just facilitating a gathering that could happen whether the Lord shows up or not. You're going to have your three-point sermon, three songs, and an offering regardless.

And the people sitting next to you? You could sit next to them for 20 years and not even know what they like to drink. How do you learn that? Not by asking "How are you doing this morning?" and getting "Fine, thank you" in return.

There's no human connection, and even worse, there's no impact on our community. That's exactly what the enemy wants—for us to go through the motions of gathering, worshiping, learning, and going away unchanged.

What we learn doesn't affect our everyday life. Or if it does, it doesn't get beyond our own four walls to impact our neighbors or community.

What Ekklesia Actually Means

The ekklesia convenes to do the business of the King. It's both priestly and political, prophetic and practical.

In the Old Testament, you see this divine council concept throughout Scripture—in Psalm 82, in the book of Job, when Isaiah sees the Lord's throne room, when Ezekiel is lifted up. The sons of God shouted for joy when God laid the foundation of the earth—that was the divine council in action.

When Jesus Christ descended into earth and became human, He opened the way for the fallen sons and daughters of Adam to be reborn and reenter that heavenly position they were intended for from the beginning. God never intended for Adam and Eve to be stuck on earth in Eden. He meant for them to rule heaven and earth.

Through the Spirit, we're made to sit together with Christ in heavenly places. We're now seated. That is the convening of the divine council. You and me, together with Christ—but also with the holy angels who are part of that council.

The ekklesia becomes the divine council formed to do Kingdom business.

You Can Convene Right Now

Here's the revolutionary part: you don't need a special building, a Sunday service, or ordained clergy to convene in ekklesia.

Jesus said, "Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20, NIV). The actual sense of that is: if two gather in my name, I become the third. You create a portal, and His presence becomes that third in the middle, creating a channel through which heaven flows into earth.

That means you and a friend sitting together right now can actually convene and do Kingdom business. But you have to know what you're doing and be intentional about it.

You don't have to be clergy. You don't have to be ordained ministers. The whole concept of "clergy" conveys a separation between secular and sacred—and anytime you create those divisions, the enemy steps in to disempower us.

How to Actually Convene

So how do you do this practically? You follow the order of ekklesia business:

Priestly first: Start with worship. Come into His presence. Give thanks. Offer sacrifices of praise. Create an atmosphere of glory, because in that atmosphere, revelation begins to flow.

Then prophetic: Deliberate with God. Ask Holy Spirit, "What are You saying? What is the Father doing? What's on the agenda?" Listen together. Share what you're hearing. This is the Kingdom council deliberating—and everyone's perspective is subject to review and accountability to the others.

Finally, kingly: This is where you decree. You receive keys—words that unlock gates and release people from the gates of death. You activate. You equip. You release people to go use those keys in the world.

Stop Visiting Jesus on Weekends

When Jesus said, "I will build my ekklesia, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18, NKJV), He was saying something profound about authority.

Hades means grave—the realm of death. And the gates of death include not just physical death but psychological death. The death of embarrassment. The death of a relationship. The death of dreams. All of it.

The fear of death enslaves us—"all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews 2:15, NKJV). The fear of rejection, the fear of lack, the fear of not having enough—these are all rooted in the fear of death.

Jesus came to die so that through death, He could destroy death. And when the ekklesia convenes, we're given keys to open the gates of death in our sphere of influence.

That's why He came. Not so we could visit a building once a week and watch religious professionals perform. But so we could become the ekklesia—the assembly that legislates Kingdom reality into every corner of the world.

When you come to a gathering of believers, you should have this expectation: "Today I'm going to get keys. I'm going to be authorized. I'm going to be activated. The ekklesia is going to convene, and when I walk out of here, I'm going to have keys to open the gates of death in my world."

The Goal Isn't Information

The goal of understanding ekklesia isn't just to give you information. It's not to teach you about ekklesia.

It's to release you to become ekklesia.

So that you and your spouse can be ekklesia in the middle of a crisis. So that you and your friends working out together can be ekklesia when a particular area of your city needs breakthrough. So that when God leads you into a neighborhood, you can actually legislate, dream together, and build a different world.

We cannot keep the King locked up in the building. Elvis has to leave the building.

The reason we teach this in Sunday gatherings is to multiply it Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday—so that when you go out into your sphere of influence, you can bring transformation into the world.

That's unleashing God's Kingdom. That's what Jesus came to build.

Welcome to the ekklesia.

What would change in your life if you stopped "going to church" and started being the ekklesia? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Blessings,
Susan 😊