House Church. For pastors, the mere term once conjured up images of angry men and women gathered around a kitchen table, condemning the mis­takes and failures of the traditional church they had left for one reason or another. These finger-pointers started their own movements, their own groups, and as far as some were concerned, their own cults, defining theology in their own terms with no clear view of where their accountability rested except far from the oversight of the pastor they left.

It would seem that times have changed. According to a report put out last year by the Barna Group, roughly 70 million Americans regularly attend or have experimented with a house church. Twenty million of those attend a house church solely as their primary method of worship. All told, research points to an increase in house church involvement of almost 8 percent since 1996, growth that is being noticed and carefully watched by church leaders. Ed Stetzer was recently appointed direc­tor of research for LifeWay Christian Resources, but in his prior position at the North American Mission Board, he did his own study, following up on what Barna had discovered about the rise and growth of house churches as an alternative faith community. Stetzer’s research, done in conjunction with Zogby International, discovered that of the 3,600 Americans they polled, 50 attend a small group of 20 or less and rarely” or never” attend a place of worship.

“If extrapolated, Stetzer wrote in his report, this is almost 1.4 percent of the American population and may represent the purest measure of those who are not involved in an organized church, syna­gogue or mosque but still are involved in some alternative faith community like, in the Christian faith, a house church. That is about four million—not a small number.

While the numbers are striking and offer the first examples of hard numerical data of a trend once too nebulous to track, pastors want to know what numbers can t always answer: why people are looking to house churches for spiritual growth and support over what is already offered by convention­al and mega churches. The answer, John Huffman believes, is a desire for spiritual intimacy. “I think it s basically two ends of the spectrum, said Huffman, senior pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif. On one hand, you have a craving for intimacy; on the other, you want to be part of something big, suc­cessful and thriving.

Huffman believes it is a cycle as old as time.

This is nothing new—what comes around goes around and comes back again, he said, pointing out that mega churches were around in the 1920s. “Many people leave their little church because they like the excitement and all the activities of the big church, but then they crave intimacy again, and want to know and be known. The house church comes out of that desire; that s why the best of the big churches build around the small group.