Church - People or Place?

What is the Church?  Andy Stanley in his book "Deep and Wide" and also in his messages has done a great job talking about the problem we have with the word church.  Jesus used a Greek word "Ekklesia" which simply means the gathering.  When he talked about the church and building it, he was speaking of his public gathering of people.  About 300 years later, The Romans start using the word Basilica which speaks about a place/ a building.  When the Bible was being translated the translators for the King James Bible took the word Ekklesia and used the German word Kirche which in English is Church which means House of God.  However, when William Tyndale did the First translation of the Bible from Greek and Hebrew to English he used the word 'Congregation" to point to a people and not a place.
What do you think about when you hear the word Church?  People?  Place?  Most of us probably have to admit we think of it as a place a building which we come to in order to Worship.  
This error has caused many problems in the gathering of people following Jesus.   Let me just list a few of them.
1) We become more about maintaining buildings then leading people in a growing relationship with Christ.
2) We compartmentalize our faith and live one way at Church the Building and another when we are not there
3) We invest in buildings and not people
4) We confuse people and some of them think God actually does live in the building

We must return to Ekklesia.  We must return to the gathering Jesus created and not just build buildings and think He will be there.

Pastor Ed