Sadly, the organic growth impetus of the home-centred church was greatly diminished with the move to communal church buildings in the fourth century. It was in this period that the church moved from homes to halls with a concomitant loss of social cohesion
and shared mission. After 300 years of being centred on family and friendship groups, the Christian church shifted its core towards larger front-led group meetings emphasising conformity and predictability rather than creative freedom and variety. This dramatic shift in the life of the church was largely the result of Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman empire. Despite the undoubted benefits of this acceptance, it came with an unhealthy cultural shift whereby the home-based nature of the first church was in time replaced by the hall-based model which is largely the outward form of the church today.