No, seriously... this is ridiculous. If they want to call it a "prayer meeting," well that's one thing, but this use of the word "church" to describe everytime more than three baptists go to the same place is getting a little ridiculous.
A few weeks ago, someone wrote about the phenomenon of "house churches" gaining tens of millions of followers in the US. Turns out, all that was meant was people -- like about 90% of whom attended some sort of REAL Sunday service -- praying in a house.
OK, I get that not everyone is high church, but for Christ's sake (and I mean that), enough with using the word "church" to describe the marginally Christian equivalent of a theme restaurant.
Don't get me wrong... I'm glad if someone is going out there and getting cowboy types (Alabama???) to pray, but I'm just so sick of defining everything down. I just lump it in the same class as calling a group of buddies, a "family," the scribblings of deranged lunatics, "art", or the failure to adequately fund some indigenous ritual, "cultural genocide."
The church is the people. The church building is the building. They aren't the same, and these groups of people meeting at placese are churches. "Whenever two or more of you are gathered in my name." Paul started quite a few house churches.