I've been in different home fellowships throughout my time in those cities. Some I stayed at for awhile, and some a matter of weeks. As you get to know other believers, you find out about different ways and places that they worship.
You're right, there is a difference between small groups within a larger church structure. Often, those have a lot more stability and accountability. I would hope that any Christian would have some friendships and relationship with those who go to different churches. I've known them from para-church ministries, family, work, hobbies, etc.
I'm not so much concerned about WHAT they're doing on their own. I'm saying the principle of isolating yourself from a community of believers is not Scriptural.
This is becoming a really interesting discussion, thank you! What seems clear to me is that the church in the USA is a very different thing to what we have here. I suppose scale is one major difference. I live in a moderately sized town as British towns go, and, apart from blatantly cultish places like the kingdom hall, I reckon I have visited all of the churches there are. I did so following the bad experience I mentioned in my only longstanding fellowship...where I was virtually kicked out for speaking out what God was telling me. When it was discovered and proved to be true by the leadership, instead of apologizing, they invented something that they thought they could pin on me, having circulated rumours about my behaviour which were total lies.
It nearly broke my heart to leave because I had been there a long time and got to know and love everyone. As far as I was concerned, I was doing what the Lord was leading me to do, and I still am, it is just that I had to figure out that what He wanted from me was not exactly what I imagined.
Next followed about 15 years of homeless work, as I explored that area of what God has called me to. I met a lot of homeless Christians, and a lot of others who just had such deeply sad circumstances, and it seemed to me that they were being swept under the carpet and ignored by the authorities and also the church.
Even so I was longing for fellowship and what came was informal, twos and threes, under the sky praying together, getting to know each other better and trying to help out there when the needs seemed just so enormous compared to limited resources.
I haven't given up entirely on the local churches, but between the heresies preached from the pulpit as though it is truth, the false authority, the lack of discernable love and/or power of God, and the fact that my name is mud in some places because of lies that were told about me by my original fellowship (mud sticks!) I have just about exhausted all avenues for fellowship.
Finally I am in a place where I wait for the Lord to show me what next. It feels like I have finally found my way down to the bottom of the hole I am in, and everything has gone quiet. Jesus said in the world we will have tribulation, but fear not, I have overcome the world.
So you see, it is not always rebellious people that find themselves without fellowship: it can be the opposite. Jesus made that plain and told us to rejoice and be exceeding glad, if they say all manner of things about you FALSELY for My sake...which is what happened. The leadership in that horrible church thought they were doing God a service by making me the scapegoat for the evil that was going on in there. I am not making this up: it was bad.
I believe Jesus when He said I will build MY church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I know that I know that I know I am His, and that I want to do what He wants me to do. But I also know that as soon as we find ourselves doing exactly that, there are enemies...and some of those turn out to be the ones you thought you could depend upon to support you.
So I am waiting for the next step. I have had a lot of time to think. What it seems like to me is we in the West often treat salvation like a commodity that we purchase with a tithe and with our showing up on Sundays, as though God owes us something. We have bought everything else that we can, and now we think we can buy salvation. That might sound harsh, but there is a dividing line becoming apparent between those who serve God and fellow man, and those that seem to constantly serve themselves, overtly or covertly.
We live in very serious times.