Meetinghouse
Reserving “church” to designate a covenanted ecclesiastical society, New England Puritans used “meetinghouse” to denote the assembly place used for church services, town meetings, and other public gatherings. Church membership was restricted, but attendance at church services was mandatory. Services included baptisms, sermons, prayers, psalm singing, and funerals for notable persons. Typically a white frame structure, the early square meetinghouse, with a central tower, gave way to an oblong style with an end tower topped by a spire. The pulpit dominated the simple but dignified interior. In much of New England, taxes as well as pew receipts supported the meetinghouses’ religious activities. In late colonial times the meetinghouse became a center of revolutionary activities.
I have a hunch there was originally a space between the words.
“Meetinghouse” is the sort of word PC marketers come up with so their clients sound streamlined and cutting-edge.
All it indicates, mostly, is that yet another church hired yet another PC liberal marketing firm to make them seem cool. Check out the Lutherans if you want to see it taken to a ridiculous extreme.