Felicity Dale from “Simple Church: A House Church Perspective” has written a very important post called “What’s the difference between a church that meets in a house and a simple/organic/house church?”

While I’ve met a few “house church” (or simple/organic/whatever) enthusiasts who demand that the church must meet in a house, most don’t. (For those who do, what do you do with the hall of Tyrannus in Acts 19:9-10?) No, it’s not the place that matters.

So, what matters? How the church relates to one another when they meet together (for one thing).

As Felicity warns:

We suspect that many people in house church still do what they used to do in the buildings–and usually they do it badly.  Someone has been asked to lead the worship, another person gives a talk, another is responsible for the kids.  Unfortunately, the lone guitarist lacks the professional expertise of the worship band that led worship in the building and the person who gives the sermon hasn’t had hours to prepare a stimulating talk because he’s been working at a job all week. To be honest, we might be better off staying in the building!

Yep. If you’re just going to do the same ol’ thing, then why change location?

If, instead, you start with how the church should meet together (and I think Scripture is a good starting point for this) you might deciding that meeting in a different location would be better. (Or, you might not decide that.)