   house church or home church is a label used to describe an independent assembly of christians who gather for worship in a home. sometimes these groups meet because the membership is small, and a home is the most appropriate place to gather, as in the beginning phase of the british new church movement. sometimes this meeting style is preferred because the group is a member of an underground christian movement, which is otherwise banned from meeting, as in china. some recent christian writers have supported the view that the christian church should meet in houses, and have based the operation of their communities around multiple small home meetings. they claim that this approach is preferable to public meetings in dedicated buildings because it is a more effective way of building community and personal relationships, and it helps the group to engage in outreach more naturally. some believe small churches were a deliberate apostolic pattern in the first century, and they were intended by christ.simson, w: "houses that change the world", pages 79â101. authentic media, 2005 cell churches are usually associated with larger churches: they also meet in homes and share some characteristics of house churches, but they are not normally considered to be house churches, as they are not self-governing. some within the house church movement (associated with wolfgang simson, frank viola and others) consider the term "house church" to be a misnomer, asserting that the main issue for christians who practice their faith in this manner is not the house but the small group type of meeting that takes place. other titles which may be used to describe this movement are "simple church," "relational church," "primitive church," "body life," "organic church," or "biblical church." however all of the practices implied by these terms are shared with many other churches outside of the movement. ==early christian house churches==  the first house church is recorded in , where the disciples of jesus met together in the "upper room" of a house, traditionally believed to be where the cenacle is today. for the first three centuries of the church, known as early christianity, christians typically met in homes, if only because intermittent persecution (before the edict of milan in 313) di
Christian_movements Christian_terminology Church Ecclesiology Missional_Christianity Types_of_Christian_organization