starting a house church

One thing that I would like to do with this blog is regularly share about what I am reading and hopefully spark some conversation.

I recently finished a book titled, Starting a House Church by Larry Kreider and Floyd McClung. I've been interested in the house church movement for some time now and I actually stumbled across this book at a bookstore a few weeks ago.  The authors are obviously huge proponents of house churches and claim that this expression of church is on the rise in the US, especially among those in their 20's and 30's.

Kreider and McClung cite a Barna study  indicating that roughly 20 million US adults attend a house church on a typical week, which translates to 9% of American adults.  So why would 20 million people choose house church over our more conventional community and mega-churches?  According to the authors the house church approach is more intimate, participatory, cost-effective, and more easily reproducible.

I tend to agree that a more simple and organic approach to church planting makes a lot of sense.  The key in my opinion though is reproduction.  The goal should not be a single house church but rather a network of house churches.  There are many house churches that never grow or reproduce and they tend to just become small inward-focused groups who are simply upset with the church they left.  At their best, house churches are networked with other house churches.

The one question that I want to explore regarding the house church approach is how does a house church planter generate and sustain momentum?  Maybe this is just coming out of my experience in more of the attractional model to doing church and momentum is generated and sustained as the house churches grow and reproduce but I'm just concerned that people become very comfortable with their group and this can easily lead to too much contentment and too little evangelistic zeal.  I guess it comes down to leadership and constantly casting a vision for reaching more non-Christians and reproducing more house churches.

I think its important to be thinking about and studying this approach as many young people outside of the church are more attracted to the house church than to the mega "attractional" church.  I'd love to hear some thoughts on house church, especially from anyone who has experience in one.