About

It all began with a dream to reach people who had given up on church. In 1985, Craig and Laura Sider moved to Oakville, Ontario to start Upper Oaks Community Church. They were strongly supported by the Brethren in Christ (BIC), a 200 year old denomination rooted in the Anabaptist, Pietist and Wesleyan heritage with a passion for innovative church planting. Upper Oaks Community Church launched on Easter Sunday 1986 and began building a community of people radically committed to living and sharing the message of Jesus.

In 1996, Craig and Laura sensed that the next step for them in serving God was accepting a leadership position with the BIC in Pennsylvania. At that point Bruxy Cavey joined the staff team. In the following years, the church grew by over 35% annually, as many in the community were attracted by hearing the message of Jesus and a fresh way of doing church. During that time, the church found new clarity in its vision, expanding its Home Church network, re-engineering its Sunday morning programming, and changing its name to “The Meeting House.” 

In 2002, The Meeting House launched our first regional site in Hamilton.  Meeting initially in a high school, members of the Hamilton community gathered every week to watch Meeting House teaching on DVD.  As we caught a vision for what God could do through a multi-site church, we set to work on three major goals that helped us focus on what God was calling us to do.  We called this "Mission 1", and wanted to launch new sites, open new Home Churches and establish our central production site.

Since 2007, we have been working towards our next set of goals--what we call "Mission 2" (clever, eh?).  We believe these goals represent what God is calling us to do together right now.  We want to engage our community to be fully engaged in our mission, double our capacity to make space for spiritual seekers and invest compassionately both locally and globally, particularly by partnering with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) and their development work in southern Africa.

Today, in 2010, we are located in nine locations across southern Ontario, and are excited about how God is growing and leading us to live simply, give generously, and love freely.

In 2002, The Meeting House launched our first regional site in Hamilton. Meeting initially in a high school, members of the Hamilton community gathered every week to watch Meeting House teaching on DVD. As we caught a vision for what God could do through a multi-site church, we set to work on three major goals that helped focus us on what God was calling us to do. The goals were:

1. A Meeting House site within 30 minutes of everyone in the Hamilton-GTA corridor.
2. A Home Church within 10 minutes of everyone in the Hamilton-GTA corridor.
3. A Central Production Site to serve as the heart and lungs of the movement.

What began as an experiment has evolved into a full-blown multi-site approach to ministry. Today, there are nine Meeting House locations across Ontario, meeting in rented movie theatres.

There are also a few Distance Home Churches across Canada, which are not full-fledged sites but meet regularly as Home Churches in places where we do not have a Meeting House site.

In addition there are groups meeting in various locations around the world, who are not affiliated with The Meeting House but do track with our teaching. You can find out where groups are meeting here on Facebook. If there isn’t one in your area you can post your location on the Discussion Board to see if there are others who might be interested in meeting with you.

Of course, the initial dream of reaching people who have given up on church is still our central focus.

What if God himself was to make a personal appearance on the planet and offer the astounding message that, as far as he is concerned, religion has outlived its usefulness?

At The Meeting House, we believe that is exactly what happened. As we study the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, we find something surprising. Time and time again he goes out of his way to undermine the religious system of his day. That is not the kind of thing we expect from Jesus, at least not the way he has often been portrayed in our culture. But the accounts we read in the Gospels paint a different picture—of a revolutionary who brought a radical message—that religious rules, rituals, and routines as a system for getting close to God were obsolete. Jesus challenged people to engage not with a religious systems but with a person—to move from mindlessly following a set of rules to showing authentic love for those around them. That is the irreligious message of Jesus, and it is the message we proclaim and seek to live out every day. If you want to learn more, check out the first sermon in our Irreligious Life series or check out "The End of Religion" by our very own Bruxy Cavey.

If you have a spiritual question, please contact your Lead Pastor or email us at seeker@themeetinghouse.ca.

Our purpose as a church really hasn’t changed much over the years, and we don’t expect it to change anytime soon. Our aim has always been to honour God by proclaiming the irreligious message of Jesus and fostering loving communities of fully committed Christ-followers. At different seasons in our life as a church, though, we have found it helpful to clarify major missional goals that pull us together in the right direction. That was the case with our first set of missional goals in 2003 that propelled us to launch new sites, open new Home Churches, and establish our central production site.

Since 2007, we have been working towards our next set of goals—what we call “Mission 2”. We believe these goals represent what God is calling us to do together right now.

Twice the people fully engaged in our mission.

We want to move from 25% to 50% of our people fully engaged in our Core Community. That means people who:

• are involved in a Home Church
• serve within our church family
• give financially to our church family
• are baptized believers

Twice the space for spiritual seekers.

We want to open new spaces for people who want to hear and live the message of Jesus. That means:

• growing from 5,000 to 10,000 open seats in our Weekend Services
• growing from 100 to 200 Home Churches

Twice the resources for our partners locally and in southern Africa.

We want to be radically generous with our money and our time to increase the capacity of our compassion partners locally and in southern Africa. That means:

• Investing $2.5 million to double the capacity of Mennonite Central Committee as they address HIV & AIDS and extreme poverty in southern Africa
• Significantly increasing our local partners’ capacity through volunters and the finances to support volunteer mobilization.

To learn more about our Mission 2 goals, and to find out how you can be involved in helping us reach them, please go to our Mission 2 page.

The Meeting House is part of a family of churches called the Brethren in Christ (BIC). The BIC began in the late 18th century in Pennsylvania, when a group of Mennonites became dissatisfied with the lack of spiritual passion in the church. The BIC has been influenced by key elements from a number of spiritual movements, including the pietist focus on heart-felt devotion to Jesus, the Wesleyan pursuit of personal holiness, and the anabaptist emphasis on simplicity, peace-making, and living the teachings of Jesus in every day life.

Today the BIC Church has about 270 churches across North America and over 1,100 churches worldwide, including a significant presence in southern Africa. The BIC church also works closely with Mennonite Central Committee, the relief and development arm of Mennonite churches which compassionately responds to social needs around the world in the name of Christ.

The Meeting House is a multi-site church that meets in movie theatres in all of our regions.  Our central Production Site is located in Oakville, Ontario. This is home to our largest site and is where our teaching is recorded each week.   Our staff offices and cross-regional support functions are also located here.
 
We have many groups interested in renting our Oakville Production Site for concerts and events.  For more information visit rentals.themeetinghouse.ca.