Meeting house

For Māori meeting houses, see Wharenui. For Operation Meetinghouse, see Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945).

A meeting house (also spelled meetinghouse or^[1] meeting-house^[2]) is a building where religious and sometimes private meetings take place.

The Town House of the small Vermont town of Marlboro was built in 1822 to be used for Town Meetings, which had previously been held in private homes. It is still in use today. Nearby is an example of a religious building called a "meeting house", the Marlboro Meeting House Congregational Church.

Terminology

Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a:

• church, which is a body of people who believe in Christ, and;
• meeting house or chapel, which is a building where the church meets.^[3][4]

In early Methodism, meeting houses were typically called "preaching houses" (to distinguish them from church houses, which hosted itinerant preachers).^[5]

Meeting houses in America

Old Town Friends Meetinghouse in Baltimore

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."^[6] 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^[7] or town-halls.^[8] Most communities in modern New England still have active meetinghouses, which are popular points of assembly for town meeting days and other events.

Buckingham Friends Meeting House in Pennsylvania

Sheep-pen pews, Old Ship Meeting house, Hingham, Massachusetts, ca. 1880

A meetinghouse of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Uruguaiana, Brazil, used for weekly services

The nonconformist meeting houses generally do not have steeples, with the term "steeplehouses" referring to traditional or establishment religious buildings.^[9] Christian denominations that use the term "meeting house" to refer to the building in which they hold their worship include:

• Anabaptist congregations
  • Amish congregations
  • Mennonite 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.^[10][11] A meetinghouse differs from an LDS temple, which is reserved for special forms of worship.^[12][13]
• 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.^[14]

See also

• Moot hall
• Chapel § Modern usage