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]
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:
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.
^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.
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^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