Obviously, the meeting room needs to be large enough to comfortably seat all of the brethren with a little space left over for unexpected guests. If someone has to sit on the floor once in a while, do not worry, our Savior taught people while they were sitting on the ground. Seating should be arranged so that people may enter or exit during the meeting with a minimum of disruption. If small children are present, a separate room should be available for parents to take crying or fussing children that would otherwise disrupt the service. (If you feel that such a room is unnecessary, talk to someone who currently has a child under 2 years old.) Bathrooms should be located where people of all ages can easily get to them.

The facility should be cheerful—both inside and out. It is very hard to be excited about going to a dreary building. Ideally, the meeting room should contain a piano, sound system, speaking stand, and chairs already set in place. These factors should enter into your decision, but not make it since there are ways to work around each of them.

The following paragraphs list possible meeting places, and the pros and cons of each. When a congregation is looking for a new meeting place, the first thing to do is ask each potential member to check the availability and cost of facilities that they already know about. If a suitable place is not found, next try asking the local chamber of commerce in each city where you might meet. Finally, go to the yellow pages (under halls, churches, clubs, etc.) and begin making some calls.

Homes. These are the obvious choice to get started. They are private, there is little cost, and bathroom, kitchen and "mother's room" facilities are always there. Nevertheless, these facilities should not be taken for granted: it is a lot of work to clean a house, before and after a service. The host's cost for water, telephone, heat, air-conditioning, paper towels, tissues, etc. will all probably increase. If one person's home is continually used for services, the congregation should at least offer to help clean it or to compensate them in some way. (If the host clearly wants to contribute his home for services, let him do it.)

Some cities may have zoning ordinances against church meetings in residential areas, though the government usually cannot take any action unless one or more neighbors complain. Obviously, brethren should be careful not to offend the neighbors of the host—not using street parking that neighbors normally use and not making excessive noise. If you live your beliefs, you will want to be a good neighbor. If your services are creating a hardship for the host's neighbors, find a solution to the problems you are causing or move somewhere else. On the other hand, if neighbors are complaining primarily to persecute you, you probably do not need to stop. If you state that you meetings are private (not public), but that people who want to worship according to your church covenant are invited, then zoning rules for public meetings probably do not apply.

Existing Church Buildings. These buildings are usually designed to do exactly what you want to do and are available in all sizes. Congregations that are short on money are often happy to rent their facilities when they are not using them. The major difficulty with securing the use of an existing church building is religious animosity: people may not want to rent to believers with different beliefs because that would "legitimize them".

If you approach the issue like this: "We are all trying to do our best to live as we understand the Scriptures and we will not judge each other," the chances of sharing a building will be greater. When groups actually work together and get to know each other, it is much easier to see how much they have in common—that they are each attempting to follow the Bible, even though they may not agree exactly how.

It is often difficult to know which church groups would be willing to rent their facilities for weekly services. Some groups may simply have too much trouble getting approval from their governing bodies. Others may have too many activities to make room for another group. When one group observes a Sunday Sabbath and the other a Saturday Sabbath, it can be easy to share the same space. Also, this author has heard of a few cases where one group will have morning services, another group will have afternoon services on the same day, and the two share a time in the middle—either for food and fellowship or for singing praise.

Many church buildings have a "fellowship hall" or "classroom" separate from their main "sanctuary". These rooms are frequently much better for setting up tables and chairs and studying the Bible in an interactive way. Many congregations are much more willing to rent these rooms than they are to rent their "sanctuary".

Businesses. Numerous businesses have meeting rooms, classrooms or open-air office space that could be used for a congregation's services. Most of these businesses are not using this space at all on weekends. Their biggest concern is the security of their business: will everything in the same place each Monday morning that it was Friday at closing? Most businesses will not let a group use their facilities unless someone who works at the business also attends the meetings to make sure that nothing "goes wrong". Nevertheless, the people who attend your services should think about the businesses where they or their close relatives might find a meeting room. Sometimes, these facilities are made available without charge. Whether charged or not, you will certainly want to make sure that you leave the facility in the same condition that you found it.

Residential Meeting Rooms. Larger apartments, condominiums, trailer parks and retirement homes may have a meeting room that could be used for services. These facilities usually have parking, rest rooms and other essentials quite nearby. They are inexpensive, but usually someone from your group must live there. Before using, be sure that the sounds from any adjacent laundry, game rooms, pools, etc. will not bother the services. Brethren need to be sensitive to the needs and rights of other tenants. If too much parking space is consumed or if adjacent game rooms are monopolized by "children from church" after services, the tenants will rightfully complain.

Community Centers, Schools and Libraries. From 20-person conference rooms to 1000-seat auditoriums, public facilities are often very good and can be inexpensive. Unfortunately, the people who schedule such rooms may have regulations forbidding their use by church groups. The regulations vary greatly from one place to the other, and are often not based upon any law, or on constitutionally questionable laws. If one is denied use of a facility for a Church service, it may help to ask if it is available for Native American, Muslim or Oriental religious use. Supreme court decisions over the last several years have upheld the right for Christians to have equal access to government facilities available to other religions.

On the other hand, it may not be possible to have a "private" meeting in a "public" facility which can open up potential problems. Also, consider that some public facilities are hard to reserve on a continuing basis. Civic and school special events take priority over even a regular "renter". If a science fair, a sports tournament or some other local event occurs when you normally rent the facility, it may not be available.

Clubs and Societies. There are numerous social, partly-political, and partly religious organizations that build halls and may be willing to rent them every week. American Legion, Eagles, Elks, Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus, Lions, Masons, Moose, Odd-fellows, Rotary, and Veterans are examples. Most of them rent their hall as a sideline to defray expenses, and will always put the needs of their own group first (weddings or even parties). Some may have a few annual events that will prevent usage some weeks. Some will have non-biblical symbols and paintings that you may wish to cover up during meetings. Some of these groups have connections with occult and demon-ism; if brethren in your congregation are offended by them, it would be better to meet somewhere else. Not all of these clubs will be listed in the phone book, but the local chamber of commerce will usually know about them. They frequently have good kitchens, mother's rooms, and other extras. Make sure several people see the facilities before agreeing to rent them—some have a permanent odor of cigarettes; some are poorly maintained.

Halls for Rent. These facilities are usually more expensive, but dealing with them is straightforward since their owners are in business to make a profit. If you agree to their price and make reservations before other customers, they will usually agree to rent their facility years in advance. There may be extra charges around holidays when hall demand is higher. It is generally better to pay a higher price than to go through the confusion of changing to a different building. Realize, though, that if someone else wants to book the facility for a solid week or more, the owner would not like to refuse them just because a congregation has booked the facility for part of a day. It is important to keep friendly communication open and even ask if there are any fairs or other local events where the facility has been booked solid in the past. The last thing you would want is to show up to your service location, find a convention in progress and a manager who "forgot" that this 2-week convention and your weekly contract have a "point of collision". A good facility, available 51 weeks of the year, is usually better than a poor one available 52 weeks. But the larger a congregation, the more important is a consistent meeting place.

Hotel and Restaurant Meeting Rooms. These kinds of meeting rooms are easy to find, but relatively difficult to book on a consistent basis. Hotels and restaurants build meeting rooms to attract customers to their main business, not to specifically make money from rentals. A hotel may rent a meeting room for $100 for one day, but they would much rather give it away free to a convention that uses 50 rooms at $50 per night. A restaurant would rather have a room full of people ordering food and drinks, than just a room full of people studying. Other difficulties with these types of rooms include noise from other customers, lack of privacy, no "mother's room" and often a complete prohibition from snacks or pot-luck meals (hotel/restaurant food only). The environment just frequently oriented toward worldliness rather than worship. These rooms may provide a place of meeting in an emergency, but usually do not work well on a long-term basis.