First of all, I'm not too sure that "house church" is even an accurate description anymore and often times it is laden with meaning that may or may not be accurate. In agreement with Neil Cole, I think a better term is "organic church" because most often to mention the term "house church" is connected with disgruntled Christians, home-school groups, people who read the Left Behind series, KLUV, and so on. Again, organic is better because churches can and do meet in houses but they also meet in cafes, parks, and so on. For our own "organic church" the people most comfortable with using the term "house church" are the non-believers because they're not aware of how that term is used in Christian circles. All they know is that "house church" is a place and people where Jesus / God is talked about, there's always great food, there's a level of deeper connectivity, and you can step outside from time to time to have a cigarette ...
My desire is to be part of a bone fide church planting movement. The only way that it truly can happen is for the starting of organic churches to be normative for all believers. I just got back from two weeks in China and am aware of the difference between a "pre-Christian / Christendom" nation (China) versus a post-Christian / Christendom setting (U.S.) so I don't come to the table thinking all we need to do is to be like the Chinese. There's a movement there of epic proportions indeed and we're seeing the rise of the "third church" there as well. Here's a big difference between there and here. We met with one of the house church "uncles" who leads one of the movements there and the question was asked, "How do you train people to plant churches? What strategies or plans do you have" He replied, "Well ... we don't. We just train people theologically and it's assumed that they all will plant churches."
Again, to recognize our "post-everything" setting here we know fully well that if we simply train people theologically that will not leading to church planting. We're up against a Christendom culture where we communicate verbally and non-verbally that if you really are gonna plant then you need seminary, highly specialized training, and lots of funding. No wonder we don't see any movements taking place here. What will it take in our American church for church planting to be normative for all? Instead of "every member a minister" it is "every member a church planter?"
For the City,
Sean