The churches as they stand

THE ROLL AS OF NOVEMBER 2026

Sixteen congregations: the Religion section's closing roll seats sixteen congregations on Granger ground as of November 2026, and this chapter prints the roll at pointer size, as it stands. The largest is St. Pius X Catholic parish, 52553 Fir Road — the farm chapel's heir, some ten thousand parishioners, under Msgr. Michael Heintz, the pastorate as the Religion section's roll carries it this month. Beside it stand the settlement century's survivors: New Salem United Methodist Church on Ash Road, under its third denominational name, beside its cemetery; and the Harris Prairie Church of Christ, carried in current directories under its own name with its present seat unsettled in the record. The suburban plantings fill the rest of the roll: Granger Missionary Church on Birch Road, of 1952, with its Spanish-language sister congregation on the same campus; Peace Evangelical Lutheran on Cleveland Road; Granger Community Church on University Drive, the living-room plant of 1986 under its second lead pastor, with an Elkhart campus; Gospel City Church on Hickory Road; Nfluence Church on State Road 23, the 2004 plant that made the place a network's headquarters; Michiana Covenant Presbyterian on Cleveland Road; Journey Church on Adams Road; Michiana Church of God on Ash Road; Calvary Chapel on Fir Road, with its school; Grace Church on Gumwood Road — standing, in the Religion section's own phrase, in the summer its school closed; Good Shepherd United Methodist on Elm Road; Family Bible Church of God, worshipping in the McGann Hay chapel; and True Life Ministries, mailing from Bittersweet Commons Boulevard. Beneath them, the township's two burying grounds keep the older pattern: Harris Prairie Cemetery on Adams Road, its sign reading "est 1834," and Salem Cemetery on Ash Road at the county line.

What the roll means as a present state: a farm township that organized three churches in its first century seats sixteen in its second, none of them a cathedral, none of them the place's own in law — the parish answers to a diocese seated in Fort Wayne and South Bend, the plants to networks and denominations seated elsewhere — and the largest single gathering of Granger people on any weekly basis is a parish mass. The congregations' courses are the Religion section's; their present tense is one line each, and the line is this roll.

Sources:

1. The Religion section of this build (gr-rel-today, the dated roll as of November 2026, compiled from the congregations' own records, diocesan and denominational records, and current directories; the pastorate succession at gr-rel-stpius-pastors; the closings at gr-rel-closings), pointed to at pointer size, not re-dug.
2. The Government leg (gr-gov-harris) for the township's two cemeteries and their keeping.