The word 'church' comes to us from an old English word cirice , which comes from the West Germanic word kirika (many English words are borrowed from German), that came from the Greek word kuriake meaning, 'of the Lord'. But our faith didn't originate with the Greeks, English, or the Germans. You see, these peoples were already worshiping their nature deities in sacred areas, like little clearings in massive oak groves, or in midst of large stone obelisks set upon wide open expanses, or around green clad sacred burial mounds, when Jesus walked this earth preaching the gospel. These where the sacred houses of their rural and territorial gods, or lords. So there are those who will not use the word 'church' for this reason -- because it's linked to Germanic and British idolatry. Now then, I'm certainly all for keeping wholesome words, but the best English translation for the Greek word "ecclesia", is apparently "church." Translators do the best they can to make things understandable for their audiences, so just keep that in mind when discussing the use of words in Scripture. Anyway, we now have the ability to look up words in our English translations to find the original Hebrew or Greek words, something that was not available to the average Joe Christian hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
Anyway, in the Old Testament, which was originally written in Hebrew, the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, were commonly referred to as 'The House of the Lord." These houses were where the people would go to hear the word of God read to them, and to worship, and it was not meant to be a place to bring heathen Gentiles, or other profane people. These man made structures were not where God was literally housed, or where he literally lived, because Scripture rightly proclaims that God can't be housed in a mere building made by human hands. These places were places of meetings, or encounters with God and other people of like faith. So, when the gospel spread to other parts of the world, the use of kuriake in the German/English languages may be the shortening of the Greek term for the house, or congregation of the Lord, or it might be what they used after they were converted from paganism to Christianity, not thinking to make any distinction from God's house and the former house of their pagan deity. This makes sense, since we humans are lazy and love to mix paganism with godliness, and we even like to shorten long phrases, or there was simply no other word to best describe the Hebrew or Greek word. Now we come to the term that the New Testament manuscripts use, which is ekklesia, to denote a gathering of those that are "called out", or that are of "the way" and sometimes ouvaywyn , or synagogue was even used, when speaking of the place where Paul went to reason with Jews about Jesus being Messiah and to preach the gospel to them. So does it really matter what word we use?
Words are containers of meaning. We use them to communicate our ideas, emotions, and instructions; they are are essential to making our self heard and understood, or even misunderstood depending on the listener. Whenever an argument is to be made regarding a topic, definitions must be assigned to the words that are being studied, or discussed. I can say a word that means something to me, but it may mean something entirely different to someone else, for instance the word 'dream', or 'freedom'. But without defining, or being specific regarding my use of these words, they could mean many different things to many people, and this can lead to unintentional misunderstandings, or even cleaver and intentional misleading.
What is the whole point of whether or not our gatherings are referred to as an ecclesia, or church? Before I am accused of splitting hairs, the point is that over time, people substitute words for other words, or meanings can get lost in translation and the meanings attached to words can change over the course of time. The New Testament is careful to define ecclesia as a gathering of the 'called out' ones. I think it is important for us to realize that this should lead a thinking person to ask, "called out from what , and/or into what?" A person who accepts Jesus as their Savior has been called out from the world, according to John 17, and gathered into the family of God, for the purpose of living and preaching the gospel, which is salvation from sin and death! Jesus told Peter that the knowledge of Jesus being the Messiah (the Son of God) is the rock upon which He would build His ecclesia. So, we who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and follow Him, we are all likened to living stones, which are gathered together to make up the 'Church' , or for some, the better term being ecclesia, of Jesus. Which ever term you choose to use, just know that you are a called out one, called out from the world system of idolatry, and called into God's system of faith and the worship of Him alone!