The exact page text, read by your browser's voice.
Religion · The Congregations of the Prairie
The roll of this ground
1830–2026
Granger's faith record runs in two long layers: a farm century in which a township of a few hundred people organized exactly three churches — Presbyterian, Evangelical, and Christian, in the county history's own list — and buried…
The first three churches: Presbyterian, Evangelical, and Christian
THE SETTLEMENT CENTURY, AS OF HOWARD (1907)
The whole organized religion of the nineteenth-century township fits in one sentence of the county history: "The churches that have been organized in Harris township are the Presbyterian, the Evangelical and the Christian."…
The Evangelical line: Salem, on Ash Road
THE EVANGELICAL CONGREGATION OF HOWARD'S LIST · PRESENT SEAT 52173 ASH ROAD
Howard's second church survives on the ground under a Methodist name: the South Bend Area Genealogical Society's index of St. Joseph County church records crosswalks the congregation seated at Granger under three historical names…
The Christian line: Harris Prairie Church of Christ
DOCUMENTED 1955–2012 · PRESENT SEAT UNSETTLED IN THE RECORD
Howard's third church — "the Christian" — is the Restoration Movement congregation that the later record knows by the prairie's own name: the Harris Prairie Church of Christ, a Christian Church/Church of Christ congregation of…
The burying grounds: Harris Prairie and Salem
1834–PRESENT
The place's oldest religious institution is a cemetery: Harris Prairie Cemetery, at 14500 Adams Road, carries a sign and a record that agree — established 1834, four years after the first settlers, two years before the township…
The Catholic presence before the parish
MID-1800s–1954
Catholics were on this ground a century before they had a parish on it: the township's own history, as the trustee's newsletter carries it from Germaine Goff's township history, remembers that in the mid-1800s Father Edward Sorin…
St. Pius X: the founding, 1936–1956
FORMALLY ESTABLISHED 1956 · THE 1951 CONFLICT PRINTED WHOLE
The parish begins, by its own account, as a farm chapel: the Catholics of St. Joseph's Farm formed an unofficial parish community from 1936, served by chaplains of the Congregation of Holy Cross whose parish list begins in 1924 …
St. Pius X: the building course and the great church, 1970–2017
PRESENT CHURCH DEDICATED MARCH 25, 2017 · 52553 FIR ROAD
The parish built in step with the suburb around it: a rectory in 1970; a parish center and gymnasium in 1986; a new church and offices built across 1989–91 and dedicated in 1992, replacing the 1950s church as the worship seat. In…
St. Pius X: the pastors, Holy Cross and diocesan
CHAPLAINS FROM 1924 · SCHOOLER 2001–2024 · HEINTZ 2024–PRESENT
The succession runs in two orders: for the parish's first two-thirds of a century its priests were Holy Cross men — the chaplains of St. Joseph's Farm, whose list the parish's own record begins in 1924, twelve years before the…
The diocese over the parish: Fort Wayne–South Bend
ERECTED JANUARY 8, 1857 · RENAMED 1960 · BISHOP RHOADES FROM 2010
St. Pius X stands inside a diocese older than the township's churches: the Diocese of Fort Wayne was erected on January 8, 1857, by Pope Pius IX, carved from the Diocese of Vincennes, which had held all Indiana until then, with…
Granger Missionary Church: the Bethel students' plant of 1952
BEGUN EASTER SUNDAY 1952 · 50841 BIRCH ROAD
The ground's oldest Protestant congregation of the modern roll began, by its own account, just over the state line: "On Easter Sunday 1952, two Bethel College students began holding services in an old brick house near…
Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church: the WELS congregation of 1972
SINCE 1972 · 16791 CLEVELAND ROAD
The Lutheran seat on this ground dates itself plainly: Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church, at 16791 Cleveland Road, states on its own record that it has been "sharing the message of Jesus with the people of Michiana since 1972."…
Granger Community Church: the living room and the cinema, 1986–2019
FOUNDED 1986 · FIRST PUBLIC SERVICE, FIRST SUNDAY OF DECEMBER 1986 · 630 E. UNIVERSITY DRIVE
The largest Protestant congregation in the place's history began with fewer than ten people in a living room: in 1986 Mark Beeson, a United Methodist pastor newly transplanted to Granger, his wife Sheila, and a handful of others…
Granger Community Church: the succession of 2020
BEESON RETIRED JULY 1, 2020 · DISAFFILIATED JULY 2020 · BRYANT LEAD PASTOR
The succession the Story of Granger section flagged is settled from the church's and the denomination's own records: Mark Beeson was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was relieved as senior pastor in December 2019 as the…
Gospel City Church: the Harvest plant of 2009
PLANTED FEBRUARY 2009 AS HARVEST BIBLE CHAPEL GRANGER · RENAMED FEBRUARY 2019 · 52277 HICKORY ROAD
One of the ground's congregations has already lived under two names: in February 2009 a new church was planted at 52277 Hickory Road as Harvest Bible Chapel Granger, out of the Harvest Bible Fellowship church-planting network …
Nfluence Church: the Oasis plant of 2004
FIRST MEETING OCTOBER 2004 · FIRST SUNDAY SERVICE, EASTER 2005 · 14719 STATE ROAD 23
The congregation at 14719 State Road 23 tells its own story whole, and it begins in Ohio: in the late 1990s Louie Weber, a former professor at Kentucky Christian College, left the Bible-college classroom to plant a church in his…
Michiana Covenant Presbyterian Church: the PCA congregation
ACTIVE BY 2012 · 14567 CLEVELAND ROAD
Howard's Presbyterian line has no traced heir, but the Presbyterian faith has a modern seat on the ground on its own documented terms: Michiana Covenant Presbyterian Church, at 14567 Cleveland Road, is a congregation of the…
Journey Church: the Assemblies of God seat
12100 ADAMS ROAD · PRESENT STATE AS OF 2026
The ground's Pentecostal seat in the current record is Journey Church, an Assemblies of God congregation at 12100 Adams Road — the old State Road 23 corridor, which is why directory echoes also carry the address as 12100 State…
Michiana Church of God
51637 ASH ROAD · DIRECTORY STRENGTH
On Ash Road, a short distance north of the Salem church ground, directories seat a second congregation: Michiana Church of God, at 51637 Ash Road, Granger. The seat is carried across the current directory record at that address…
Calvary Chapel and its school
53494 FIR ROAD · DIRECTORY STRENGTH
The Fir Road corridor carries a third congregation beside the Catholic parish: Calvary Chapel, at 53494 Fir Road, Granger, telephone (574) 273-9987 in the directory record — a congregation of the Calvary Chapel movement, the…
Grace Church and the school that closed in 2026
52025 GUMWOOD ROAD · THE SCHOOL c. 1971–2026
At 52025 Gumwood Road, a church and a school share one address and one ground: Grace Church, carried in the current directories at that address as a congregation serving the Granger community; and Granger Christian School, the…
Good Shepherd United Methodist Church
51521 ELM ROAD · DIRECTORY STRENGTH
The Methodist roll of the modern ground has a third name: Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, at 51521 Elm Road, Granger, keeping its own site at ggsumc.org — a congregation of the Indiana Conference of the United Methodist…
The small fellowships: chapel and commons
PRESENT STATE AS OF 2026 · DIRECTORY STRENGTH
Two congregations of the current roll meet without church buildings of their own: Family Bible Church of God, which directory listings place in worship at the McGann Hay Granger Chapel, 13260 State Road 23 — a funeral home's…
Churches & Religion: Not Found in the Record
TESTED AGAINST THE CURRENT RECORD, NOVEMBER 2026
The checklist asks for the faiths a reader will assume, and the record's answer for this ground is a set of honest negatives: no Jewish congregation is seated inside the designated place. St. Joseph County's Jewish congregations…
The faith ground that is not this ground
PRINTED, NEVER ABSORBED
Five pieces of religious ground touch this record and belong to other builds: first and largest, the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis — the gated religious ground on the Dragoon Trail corridor that this program was…
Closings, separations, and changes of name
THE COURSE OF ENDINGS, AS DOCUMENTED
The ground's congregations end and change in the open, in this record, more often than they vanish: the Salem congregation's course runs through two national unions — Evangelical to Evangelical United Brethren in 1946, and to…
The roll as it stands: November 2026
THE DATED PRESENT STATE
As of November 2026, the record seats sixteen congregations on Granger ground: St. Pius X Catholic parish, 52553 Fir Road, the farm chapel's heir, under Msgr. Michael Heintz, some ten thousand parishioners strong; New Salem…