What is a house church?

A house church consists of two or more baptized believers who regularly meet in a house for worship and who perceive themselves as a church.  (Included in this definition would be issues like singing, praying, studying the Bible, partaking of the Lord’s Supper, etc.)  We want to say early on that house church is just one kind of model for church.  We’re not saying that it’s the only way to do church.  We need not think of house church as in opposition to the ministry of the institutional church that meets in a church building. (The institutional church is sometimes called traditional or community church.  These three terms just mean what we usually have in mind when we think of a church).