How do you all answer people who say that house church is not real church? Example, my wife and I just started our own house church on Pentecost Sunday. Her mother (who is a minister) said that we should be going to an established church though, for fellowship purposes and what-not. How do you answer that? I mean I know that the church is not a building but the believer and the assembly of the believers. She does have a point though, but seeing how I'm new to the house church/worship scene, just don't know how to answer that quite.
I have an answer for that... The word for fellowship in the New Testament is koinōnia.. It means "communion by intimate participation." Communion as in togetherness, not Lord's Supper. The Strong's Concordance Definition is:
1) fellowship, association, community, communion, joint participation, intercourse
a) the share which one has in anything, participation
b) intercourse, fellowship, intimacy
1) the right hand as a sign and pledge of fellowship (in fulfilling the apostolic office)
c) a gift jointly contributed, a collection, a contribution, as exhibiting an embodiment and proof of fellowship
So when you talk about fellowship, it means intimacy shared between believers. I have never been to an institutional church and can say after I left the service I had true fellowship according to that definition. You know why? Form follows structure. So the structure of a building/institution causes the form of those inside of it to change. So if I walk into a building and one person is speaking, the chairs are below them, facing one way.. the form of that meeting takes its shape based on the structure. That's why the structure of institutional churches must be torn down in order to have true fellowship, that which Christ envisioned for the church. It was never about a denomination, or "ordained and paid clergy."
You have a much greater chance of true fellowship in your home gathering. It's intimate, small, and allows for everyone to share the Christ with each other who lives inside the saints. This allows love to flow out of mouths, hearts, and hands to each other. Christ said all men will know we are his disciples for the love one for another. A true organic church allows for that love to flow and be expressed through each member.
Study what the early church did in the New Testament, and see if institutional churches come seven close to doing 5% of it... They don't.
On a side note, people misinterpret "pastor" as a title and position in the church and say "look, it's right here in the Bible!". The early churches had no pastor over them. They had Paul, who planted a church, stayed for a few months, then left them on their own. It is Christ who became the head of those churches, not a man or pastor.
Pastor is a function. It means shepherding. So the term pastor was never even used singularly in the NT. It was plural. They had "pastors" or "shepherders" that helps others in the church. They did not speak every meeting, while others remain mute and silent. They did not hear the Lord of behalf of the people, for each one had Christ inside and were led as one body together. They did not solely teach others, as Christ was their teacher, and they needed none because they had His spirit.
Their faith was also not based on written words on a page. Only 5% of people could read. Gentiles did not have access to Holy Scriptures. The NT was not canonized yet. What was their faith based on? The living Christ that was inside each of them, supplying rivers of life by His Spirit.
if you would like continual prayers, please PM me and I'll add you to my prayer list. 
