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House church or home church is a label used to describe an independent assembly of Christians who gather for worship in a private home. Sometimes these groups meet because the membership is small, and a home is the most appropriate place to assemble, as in the beginning phase of the British New Church Movement. Sometimes this meeting style is advantageous because the group is a member of an underground Christian movement which is otherwise banned from meeting as is the case 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. Other Christian groups choose to meet in houses when they are in the early phases of church growth because a house is the most affordable option for the small group to meet until the number of people attending the group is sufficient to warrant moving to a commercial location such as a church building. House church organizations 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 79–101. Authentic Media, 2005〕 The satisfaction level of those attending house churches tends to be higher than their counterparts who attend traditional churches. Surveys have shown that satisfaction levels are elevated in regard to church leadership, faith commitment of members, level of community within the church and spiritual depth of the church setting. Research has shown that older members are drawn to house churches because they are devout Christians who desire deeper, more intense relationships with God and other church members. Younger members who are drawn to house churches are those who are interested in faith and spirituality but not traditional forms of church. 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." House churches can adopt an organic church philosophy which is not necessarily a particular method, technique or movement but rather a particular church expression that the group takes on when the organization is functioning according to the pattern of a living organism. The church represented in the New Testament is based on this principle, and traditional, contemporary Christianity has reversed this order. ==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) did not allow the erection of public church buildings. Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, wrote of worshipping in a house. The Dura-Europos church, a private house in Dura-Europos in Syria, was excavated in the 1930s and was found to be used as a Christian meeting place in AD 232, with one small room serving as a baptistry.〔(''Assist'' )〕 At many points in subsequent history, various Christian groups worshipped in homes, often due to persecution by the state church or the civil government. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「House church」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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