In Part - Summer 2009 - The Ringgold Meeting House as Symbol

Ringgold Meeting House This is a very historic building. And it’s a building that nicely symbolizes historic principles and practices of the Brethren in Christ.

To understand best the building with its symbols, I need briefly to explain how the Brethren in Christ worshipped before they had meeting houses. For almost half of our history, Brethren in Christ did not meet in what we would now call churches. They met in houses of members, or if the group was large as on a love feast occasion, they cleared out a barn and worshipped there.

It is not difficult to understand why they should meet in houses. Earlier congregations were small, [and] could be accommodated in a small space. Also, the early Brethren in Christ were virtually all rural people—farmers—thus very practical in their orientation to life. They argued, in effect, that there was no need to go to all the trouble and expense needed to construct a special building when a member’s house could serve the purpose.

But worshipping in houses captured a spirit that was more than practical in nature. The congregational family on Sunday met in the same place where during the week a biological family lived—a family in which siblings and parents shared the love and intimacy that comes with family life at its best. This was a reminder, a suggestion to the church family of the love and intimacy that is part of the ideal church, certainly in the Anabaptist sense.

Meeting in houses also suggested the simplicity of worship. Nothing elaborate—just meeting in the simplicity and modesty of early Brethren in Christ farmhouses.

Very significantly, meeting in a house enabled and emphasized a key historic Brethren in Christ doctrine: the centrality of the Bible. Sometimes this was expressed as the people “surrounding the Word.” In at least some of the early houses, two relatively large rooms were built side by side with large folding or sliding doors separating them. When the congregation came together for worship, these doors were opened. This arrangement allowed the leader to stand in the doorway to minister to people in both rooms: the women, girls, and children in one room, then men and boys in the other. Thus, in a literal, physical way, the congregation surrounded the Word; they made the Word central.

Eventually, beginning in the 1870s, the Brethren in Christ moved from meeting in houses and barns to worshipping in buildings constructed specifically for worship, such as this meeting house.

Now if it was such a fine thing to worship in houses, why did our spiritual ancestors decide to worship in these new structures?

Several answers are possible. One is that some of the congregations had grown too large to meet comfortably in houses. In a sense, they were forced to change. Moreover, other plain people like themselves were meeting in church buildings; the danger of change thus undoubtedly appeared to be minimized.

But even as the Brethren in Christ moved into meeting houses, they retained much of the emphasis and symbols of worship that applied when meeting in houses. That leads me now to review the ways in which this Ringgold meeting house illustrates—in many ways, symbolizes—historic Brethren in Christ life and thought.

First the name: meeting house. Why not call this structure a church, as other religious groups would call it? The answer, in part, is that [“church”] was the term used by so-called “worldly” denominations—the Presbyterians, even the Methodists and others. It is almost as if the term, having been adopted by such groups, made it automatically suspect to the Brethren in Christ.

But something more significant is involved with the term meeting house, namely, that it was the meeting of God’s people that was important, not the building itself, as Carlton Wittlinger has pointed out in his Quest for Piety and Obedience. The place itself was inconsequential. It had not a sacred aura about it. The concept of a “sanctuary” would have been rejected, even if it had been understood. Thus this was a “meeting house.”

The building is a symbol of early Brethren in Christ simplicity. Outside, the structure is simple in design. The most elaborate part of the exterior is the cornice in which the bricks are arranged differently from the bricks in the wall, although even here the arrangement is only moderately different. The shutters may strike us as ornamental until we realize that, for those early days, [they] served the practical function of protecting the window[s] when closed, as they were in a meeting house for much of the time.

On the inside, simplicity continues to govern the building. The walls and ceiling are bare, except for hooks on which to hang hats and coats. The furniture is simple—just plain, unpadded pews. What we would now call the pulpit is only a plain wooden table, and the seats for the ministers are benches. The windows are plain and without curtains or blinds. Despite—perhaps because of—this simplicity, the building, inside and out, has a pleasing aesthetic quality.

This building carries from the earlier worship setting the arrangement of surrounding the Word. The table–pulpit is at the center of this long wall (not at the end of the room, as in later structures). This allows for pews to be placed at the sides and in front of the minister. (At Ringgold, one of the sides has been abbreviated because of the addition of a nursery, but even here, part of that side remains in pews.) Thus, again the Bible and the spoken word are made central to the worship of the congregation.

There are two entrances to this room, which was typical of all early meeting houses and of many church buildings. One entrance was used by the men and boys, the other by women, girls, and children. This was to facilitate the seating of one gender on one side of the room, the other gender on the other side, particularly since a partition (no longer in place) ran between the two sides of the room.

But then the question arises: Why such a separation? The answer seems to be that if the sexes were separated, there would be fewer distractions in worship service; greater attention would be given to the Word. In plain language, one would not be thinking about the opposite sex. At least, that was the explanation that my father gave me years ago when I asked the question about the separation (literally by a low partition) in my home congregation in Cheapside, Ontario.

This building also symbolized the brotherhood/sisterhood principles and practices of the Brethren in Christ. For example, the pulpit-table. It is not on a platform, thus the minister is not elevated above his people. All were to be on one level, including the leader. Surely the Christian community value of this arrangement is obvious.

Behind the table is a long bench. This is suggestive that in earlier years, more than one minister served the congregation. This multiple ministry (as it has been called) was followed in part because ministers were not paid. Because they earned a living in what we would now call a bi-vocational ministry, more than one minster was elected to spread the ministerial responsibilities.

You will notice that to the right of the ministers’ table is a similar table and bench. These were for the wives of the ministers. They sat in the same order on the bench as their husbands, whose order was determined by when they were elected (the first minister elected sitting closest to the end of the bench, the others in descending order of election).

The offering box on the table is a reminder that at one time, the Brethren in Christ did not “lift” offerings as they do now by means of offering plates. Offerings were deposited in a box, often placed at the entrance to the meeting house. This custom lasted down into the late 1930s and early 1940s in Canada; certainly the box was still in use at Cheapside when I was a boy.

The idea behind the box was once described to me by my grandfather, Aaron Sheffer, as the way to give in humility, without ostentation (although he did not use the latter word, it catches his meaning). He himself considered this a personal issue, and always regretted that the box was replaced by plates.

He once said to me, “Now, Morris, you watch when the offering plate goes by me. You will see that as it approaches, I close my eyes, put one of my hands in a pocket, and pull out whatever is there. Then, with my eyes still closed, I take the offering plate, put whatever I have in it, and pass it on. In that way, I can’t see people watching what I give. It’s just between me and the Lord.” (Parenthetically, I wondered at the time why he did not put his hand to his back pocket and deposit what paper money was in his wallet, but was a question that as a boy I didn’t think was entirely appropriate, or safe, for me to ask my grandfather!)

You will notice that the room lacks a musical instrument. That was by design. Musical instruments, especially in churches, most definitely in meeting houses, were not only suspect but forbidden. Only the “worldly” churches had musical instruments. Moreover, why would you need help [with what was], for the Brethren, such an experiential activity as “singing unto the Lord?” Some justice, we may agree, existed in this argument because given the structure of such meeting houses as Ringgold, with their low ceilings, plastered walls, uncarpeted floors, and plain wooden pews, the acoustics made singing easy and alive, even, one suspects, when the songs were the serious ones about death and the grave.

Other parts of this building were designed especially to accommodate those wonderful occasions known as the love feast. The name itself suggests another way in which Christian community was emphasized. These grand occasions usually lasted for two days and were attended by Brethren in Christ beyond the congregation. That required lodging overnight. If you go upstairs, you will see that the attic is arranged for sleeping. A wall runs the length of the attic to separate the sexes. A bed with ropes to support a canvas bag filled with straw (sometimes with feathers) may be seen on the women’s side.

In the basement a table is set for a love feast fellowship meal. You will also see the large brick oven which suggests the size of the group that attended love feast. Eating together is again suggestive of family life.

The lamps that are displayed in this room are undoubtedly a later addition, for in early years, services were generally not held on Sunday evenings, thus there was no need for lamps. In fact, it was not unusual, in the days of more difficult travel, to conduct services only once in two weeks, and then only on Sunday mornings.

Finally, I want to refer you to the small book written by Avery Zook entitled What Mean these Bricks? Avery tells the story of the congregation and the building in an excellent manner. These books are available for $1.00 a copy.

WELCOME