Granger Community Church

1986

The suburb's second great congregation began in a living room the same decade the census first counted the place: in 1986 Mark Beeson, who had moved his family to Granger in the mid-1980s, began Granger Community Church with his wife Sheila and a handful of others in their home. Unable at first to find a hall, Beeson rented a cinema then under construction — its "Coming soon: GCC" poster misread by passersby as a theater chain's initials — and the church held its inaugural public service on the first Sunday of December 1986 in the rented theater. The congregation grew into one of the region's largest, building its campus at 630 East University Drive, Granger, and adding a second campus in Elkhart. Beeson, the founding pastor, died on December 17, 2020, after a fifteen-month fight with pancreatic cancer. The congregation's full roster and course belong to the Religion section of this build; the Story of Granger section carries the founding at the size the record supports — a farm township that had organized three churches in its first seventy years grew, in its suburban century, congregations that count their people in the thousands.

Sources:

1. Michiana Life, "Growing faith," June 2016 — the church's thirtieth-anniversary account (the mid-1980s move; the rented cinema; the first service, first Sunday of December 1986).
2. Granger Community Church, "Our History" (the 1986 living-room founding by Mark and Sheila Beeson; the Granger campus at 630 E. University Drive).
3. Obituary of R. Mark Beeson (1953–2020), McGann Hay — the founding pastor's death, December 17, 2020.