The Meeting House

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The Meeting House
Type Nonprofit Religious Organization
Founded Oakville 1985
Headquarters Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Employees 33 full time (2006, CRA)
Website www.themeetinghouse.ca
The Meeting House is part of a denomination called the Brethren in Christ, or BIC for short.

The Meeting House is a large Canadian church located in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, Ontario. It was founded in 1985 by Craig and Laura Sider, and was originally known as "Upper Oaks Community Church".

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Pre-History

In 1985, Craig and Laura Sider moved to the west end Toronto suburb of Oakville to start Upper Oaks Community Church. They were strongly supported by the Brethren in Christ, and had a passion for innovative church planting. Upper Oaks Community Church launched on Easter Sunday 1986 and began building a congregation committed to following Christ.

[edit] Formation of The Meeting House

In 1990, Upper Oaks had a membership of 100 people. As a leadership they asked God for a vision for the next ten years. What emerged was a simple, yet faith stretching desire to be a community that was projected to reach 1000 people weekly by the year 2000. At that point few could envision how this simple dream could become a reality. In 1996, Craig and Laura sensed that the next step for them in serving God was accepting a leadership position with the Brethren in Christ in Pennsylvania. Although the community was sad to see the Siders leave, this drastic change enabled the church to redefine itself.

[edit] The Bruxy Cavey Years

The churches next development was hiring Bruxy Cavey for the position of Teaching Pastor. He is seen as the opposite of what you would traditionally expect from a pastor, as he will typically sport long hair, jeans and a T-shirt while delivering a sermon. The church had grown to 175 in size and was meeting at Iroquois Ridge High School.

Over the next four years, the church began to grow by 35% a year, finally reaching it's goal of 1000 attendees in a single service in December 2000(notably, exactly as forcasted). A large part of their operations was the establishment of Home Churches, as a supplement to the Sunday morning teachings.

[edit] 2001-Present

The church evolved into a multi-site organization, with the intent of having a location local to everyone in the Hamilton-GTA corridor. As of May, 2007, they have established satellite churches in Brampton, Hamilton, two locations in Toronto, and most recently, a location in Kitchener-Waterloo. The church then moved from being fixed in a single location to opening multiple sites across the Hamilton-GTA corridor, by broadcasting their sermon (delivered by Cavey) at movie theatres. By early 2008, their attendance throughout their six locations was measured to be 4500+.

[edit] Teachings

The Meeting House uses secular historical texts and the works of secular historians as well as the bible and Christan historians to get close to the historical Jesus and his message. They make a point of addressing problematic topics such as the inquisition as well as responding to current topics such as The Secret and The Lost Tomb of Jesus. The Meeting House don't want you to "check your brain at the door" but rather to investigate, question and dialogue. Most sermons end with a "Q and Eh?"-session where the audience get to ask questions about "anything said or left unsaid".

[edit] Irreligious

The Meeting House claims that Jesus came, not to start a new religion, but to shut down religion all together. They define religion as "rules, regulations, rituals and routines you do to get right with God". Jesus wanted to replace religion with relations. TMH claims that relations, with God and with other people, is the meaning of life.

[edit] Other centered love

The peace message of Jesus is also central to the teachings of The Meeting House saying "It's always OK to die for your faith. It's never OK to kill for your faith". Other centered love should be the guideline for all Christians.

[edit] External links

[edit] References