"Home church"... Say what?

There is a prevalent phenomenon around here (and I assume around there, too) called the "Home Church." To label it as a "movement" would be to suggest it is a new idea. But it is something that has been with us from even before the Radical Reformers (e.g., Anabaptists), with sinful roots that reach even further back. I'm not speaking of the kind of church that meets in a house, like the early churches of Acts when public property was forbidden to institutions unauthorized by the Roman empire. I mean, rather, the practice where families renounce membership in any visible (local) church and substitute the corporate worship of God's people on the Lord's Day with their own family's worship. How did we get to this place in the history of God's church? On one hand, having a low view of the visible, institutional church fosters this idea that a family, as a family, could substitute their own worship for the worship of the corporate assembly. On the other hand, this idea can result from a hyper-covenantal view of the father's federal headship. Often, both of these perspectives drive this unBiblical and dangerous practice.