Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. Congregationalism is often considered to be a part of the wider Reformed tradition.

Many Congregational churches claim their descent from Protestant denominations formed on a theory of union published by the theologian Robert Browne in 1582. These arose from the ideas of nonconforming Protestants during the Puritan Reformation of the Church of England. In Great Britain, the early Congregationalists were called Separatists or Independents to distinguish them from the similarly Calvinistic Presbyterians.

Congregational churches were widely established in the Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (later New England), and together wrote the Cambridge Platform of 1648 which described the autonomy of the church and its association with others. Within the United States, the model of Congregational churches was carried by migrating settlers from New England into New York, then into the Old North West, and further. With their insistence on independent local bodies, they became important in many social reform movements, including abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage. Modern Congregationalism in the United States is largely split into three bodies: the United Church of Christ, the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference, which is the most theologically conservative.

Congregational Church (Southbridge, Massachusetts)

The Elm Street Congregational Church is a historic church at 61 Elm Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Built in 1885, it is a high quality local example of high Victorian Gothic Revival architecture executed in brick. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The congregation, founded in 1816, is affiliated with the United Church of Christ.

Architecture and history

The Elm Street Congregational Church is set on the east side of Elm Street, just south of Main Street and opposite Dresser Street. It is a single-story brick structure with elaborate high Victorian styling, oriented with its long side perpendicular to the street, and its main entrance in the transept near its far end. It has a steeply pitched roof with flanking pinnacles, decorative brickwork, and Gothic-arched stained glass windows. Its tower, located at the northeast corner, is square with buttressed sides, but lacks its upper stages, which were blown down in the 1938 New England hurricane and have not been replaced. The church is the only one of its type in the city, but is built of brick compatible with other nearby civic buildings.

Congregational Church (Lafayette, Colorado)

The Congregational Church at 300 E. Simpson St. in Lafayette, Colorado was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as part of a multiple property submission, the Lafayette Coal Mining Era Buildings TR.

The church was founded in 1890. It served members of the mining community. The church served as a medical shelter building during the 1918 influenza plague.

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