A meeting house (also spelled meetinghouse or[ "Meeting house" in Merriam-Webster Dictionary] meeting-house[Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press, 2009]) is a building where religious and sometimes private meetings take place. It is associated mostly with Christian worship of certain movements after the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, or else later movements evolving from a Christian basis.
Terminology
Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between:
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church, which is a body of people who believe in Christ
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meeting house or chapel, which is a building where the church meets
In early Methodism, meeting houses were typically called "preaching houses" (to distinguish them from , which hosted itinerant preachers).
The meeting house in England
In England, where it originated, a meeting house is distinguished from a church or
cathedral by being a place of worship for dissenters or nonconformists.
[Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009]
Meeting houses in America
The colonial meeting house in America was typically the first public building built as new villages sprang up. A meeting-house had a dual purpose as a place of worship and for public discourse, but sometimes only for "...the service of God."
[Sweeney, Kevin M.. "Meetinghouses, Town Houses, And Churches: Changing Perceptions Of Sacred And Secular Space In Southern New England, 1720–1850." Winterthur Portfolio 28.1 (1993): 59. 1. Print. ] As the towns grew and the separation of church and state in the United States matured, the buildings that were used as the seat of local government were called town-houses
[Sewall, J. B. " The New England Town-house", The Bay State Monthly, Vol 1, No 5. 1884. 284–290. Print. Accessed 12/6/2013] or town-halls.
[Whitney, William D. (ed.) The Century Dictionary vol. 8. 1895. 6407. Print. Town-house may also mean a jail, poor-house, or house not in the countryside. See Century Dictionary] Most communities in modern
New England still have active meetinghouses, which are popular points of assembly for town meeting days and other events., Old Ship Meeting house, Hingham, Massachusetts, ca. 1880]]
The nonconformist meeting houses generally do not have Steeple, with the term "steeplehouses" referring to traditional or establishment religious buildings.
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Anabaptist congregations
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Congregational churches with their congregation-based system of church governance. They also use the term "" to emphasize their use as a place for discourse and discussion.
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Christadelphians
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses the term "Meetinghouse" for the building where congregations meet for weekly worship services, recreational events, and social gatherings.
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A provisional movement
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Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), see Friends meeting houses
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Spiritual Christians from Russia
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Some Unitarian congregations, although some prefer the term "chapel" or "church".
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Some Unitarian Universalist congregations
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The Unification Church
See also
Sources
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Congdon, Herbert Wheaton. Old Vermont Houses 1763–1850. William L. Bauhan: 1940, 1973. .
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Duffy, John J., et al. Vermont: An Illustrated History. American Historical Press: 2000. .
