I have attended "house churches," although they were quite unconventional and were not actually churches as one thinks of church, or even religious, though they were definitely houses/homes. Anyway, it was a powerful, life-changing experience, and I much preferred them.

This an natural extension of the base community or small group movement ( and it also happens to be the 1st century congregational structure ) and a corollary of the U.S. denominational disintermediation trend. Other trends to watch are the heightened spotlight on the burden of loan and credit card debt of students at church-related colleges and seminaries -- which schools have signed agreements to promote Visa, MasterCard, etc. ( see 'Strapped' by Tamara Draut for the more general trend ) and the increased adoption of open source web-based content management systems, pdf and open file formats and web-based distance learning ( from home schooling to higher ed ) for evangelism and education over the location-based fees at campuses ( housing, activities fees, tuition, buying your professor's books ) and the decreasing revenues of the traditional denominational publishing houses { re: the scholarship level materials, the pop stuff always sells } ) while podcasts and streamed audiobooks increase ( to cellphones for a vast portion of the planet ).