For the first time in 1,700 years, simple churches meeting in homes are once again a factor in human events. In many countries, they’re booming so strongly that critics and opponents can no longer brush them aside as a fringe movement. Home churches are producing millions of proactive Christians.
According to statistics the house church community in North America is numerically about halfway between the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention (which is the second-largest denomination in the U.S.).
George Barna, the leading U.S. church pollster and perhaps the most widely quoted Christian leader in America, is the author of the figures below. They are based on a four-month scientific survey of 5,013 adults, including 663 blacks, 631 Hispanics, 676 liberals and 1,608 conservatives.
* In a typical week, 9 percent of U.S. adults (20 million people) attend a house church.
* All told, 70 million U.S. adults have at least experimented with participation in a house church.
* Focusing only on those who attend some kind of church, 74 percent of them attend only a traditional church, 19 percent attend both a traditional and a house church, and 5 percent attend only a house church.
The study counted only attendance at genuine house churches, not small groups that are part of a traditional church.