Meeting house
A meeting house (meetinghouse,[1] meeting-house[2]) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place.
Meeting houses in America
![](../I/Baltimore_Friends_Meeting.JPG.webp)
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."[3] As the towns grew and the separation of church and state in the United States matured the buildings which were used as the seat of local government were called a town-house[4] or town-hall.[5]
![](../I/Buckingham_Friends_BucksCo_PA_from_SE.jpg.webp)
![](../I/PewsOldShip.jpeg.webp)
![](../I/Igreja_SUD_uruguaiana_rs.jpg.webp)
Many nonconformist Christian denominations distinguish between a
- Church, which is a body of people who believe in Christ
- Meeting house or chapel, which is a building where the church meets
The nonconformist meeting houses generally do not have steeples, with the term "steeplehouses" being used to describe traditional or establishment religious buildings.[6] Christian denominations which use the term "meeting house" to refer to the building in which they hold their worship include:
- Anabaptist congregations
- Congregational churches with their congregation-based system of church governance. They also use the term "mouth-houses" to emphasize their use as a place for discourse and discussion.
- Christadelphians
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) uses the term "meetinghouse" for the building where congregations meet for weekly worship services, recreational events, and social gatherings.[7][8] A meetinghouse differs from an LDS temple, which is reserved for special forms of worship.[9][10]
- Provisional Movement
- Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), see Friends meeting houses
- Spiritual Christians from Russia
- Some Unitarian congregations, although some prefer the term "chapel" or "church".
- The Unification Church
The meeting house in England
In England, a meeting house is distinguished from a church or cathedral by being a place of worship for dissenters or nonconformists.[11]
See also
References
- "Meeting house" in Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press, 2009
- 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. JSTOR 1181498
- Sewall, J. B. "The New England Town-house", The Bay State Monthly, Vol 1, No 5. 1884. 284–290. Print. Accessed 12/6/2013
- 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
- Quaker Spirituality: Selected Writings. HarperCollins. 2005. p. 18. ISBN 9780060578725.
- Hamilton, C. Mark (1992), "Meetinghouse", in Ludlow, Daniel H (ed.), Encyclopedia of Mormonism, New York: Macmillan Publishing, pp. 876–878, ISBN 0-02-879602-0, OCLC 24502140
- Seymour, Nicole (March 2006), "Standardized Meetinghouses Give a Place for More Members to Meet and Worship", Ensign, retrieved 2012-10-10
- "Of Chapels and Temples: Explaining Mormon Worship Services" (News Release), Newsroom, LDS Church, 15 November 2007, retrieved 2012-10-10
- "Topics and Background: Templaes", Newsroom, LDS Church, retrieved 2012-10-10
- Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) © Oxford University Press 2009
Sources
- Congdon, Herbert Wheaton. Old Vermont Houses 1763–1850. William L. Bauhan: 1940, 1973. ISBN 978-0-87233-001-6.
- Duffy, John J., et al. Vermont: An Illustrated History. American Historical Press: 2000. ISBN 978-1-892724-08-3.
Media related to Category:Meeting houses at Wikimedia Commons