Well, Barna's a pretty darned good pollster, but I'd want to go see the results of this poll on his own site, rather than have it interpreted by someone who seems to have a decided bias.
The home church movement is certainly growing, but this guy seems to count every little bible study group meeting in a home as a home church, and I think that's off the mark.
If you think of the Vineyard Fellowship, you get a little closer to this.
To me, the growth of the home church movement represents the end stage of the denominationalism that has split the church again and again, ever since Martin Luther rebelled against the "evils" of the RCC of his day.
Someone estimated that there were 27,000 separate denominations or groupings of Christianity. I think the number's higher than that and, if you count the home churches, it's way higher than that.
My question is: Is there a center to Christianity any longer? A central doctrine or set of doctrines that all Christians can agree upon? It's beginning to look more and more like that center is not holding any longer.
Will the splintering continue until every person is his or her own church? It's an interesting question, I think. But, I'm an atheist, so what do I know?
The center is in Rome.
No other core exists, as none of the 27,000 groups thinks having such a core is necessary.
Peter, you are Rock, and upon this Rock I will build my church!
There is still a core doctrine of beliefs, we just have a lot of heresy to deal with too. Don't worry, God will protect His church. Right now it seems that he is reorganizing things.
I have no particular statement on house churches one way or the other. The building you meet in is not a significant issue. However, I would question the doctrines of some of these groups. That matters.
Barna may not even be a very good pollster, at all. He is respected among Protestant Christians primarily because is the only pollster to specialize in Christianity, and because he uses extremely charged, Protestant-sectarian definitions. For instance, he frequently phrases questions in such a manner that few Catholics would ever answer "yes" to, and then uses those questions to establish that those who answer "no" to them deny central teachings of the Catholic faith, such as the infallibility of the bible.
Even when his phrasings are not extremely charged, he gets results which are often wildly, even preposterously different from other pollsters asking very similar questions.
My basic assessment of his polls is that they are the absolute worst of any major pollster as measured by validity (the ability to measure what they intend to measure), accuracy (the ability to obtain the proper measurements for what it is that they actually do measure), and reliability (the ability to be repeated by others so that the others get the same results).