The North Liberty Church of the Brethren, 1917 — In the Episcopal Building

1917 – present

The town's Brethren congregation was separated from the mother congregation in 1917 and worships still at 201 East Market Street, in the building bought from the Episcopalians. The history is Shultz's History of the Church of the Brethren in Indiana (1952), read whole for its North Liberty part: "This congregation was originally the extreme southwest part of what formerly was called the South Bend congregation, later known as the North Liberty Church, which included a large territory, much of St. Joseph County. It was separated from the mother congregation in 1917, and includes only the town of North Liberty and the adjacent community. The rest of the territory became known as the Oak Grove Church after the division." Of the building: "The church house was purchased from another denomination in 1903, and the two houses were operated as one congregation until the separation in 1917" — and Shultz's county part identifies the purchased building as the vacant Episcopal church, St. Philip's, "remodeled" by its buyers. The diocesan archive dates the property's sale to 1902; Shultz dates the purchase to 1903. Both print; deed records for the St. Philip's lot, 1901–1904, are the settler. "The church house was remodeled in 1923. A parsonage was purchased in 1944." Under the free ministry, preachers at the two houses included Elders Daniel Whitmer, Daniel Hartman, M. I. Whitmer, and J. M. Cripe, and ministers Elmer Heim, C. C. Cripe, and H. S. Bowers; elders in charge after 1917 ran Eli Heestand, Jacob Hildebrand, and Howard Dickey a year each, then J. F. Appleman four years, Orville Houser five, C. C. Cripe fifteen, and Ira Long five, with E. Wayne Gerdes from 1950; pastors named include Ira Long (1944–1950) and Homer Shrock (from 1950), and membership stood at 189 as of the book, about 1952 — book-time facts, not present ones. The congregation stands on the town's present roll at "201 East Market Street, North Liberty, IN — 574-656-3157," and the denomination's finder agrees on address and phone at "Active" status. Its pastor as of November 2026 was not read from any dated carrier and banks as a named gap (G-RL-12); the Northern Indiana District's directory, read directly, is the settler — the district's congregations page would not load, returning a sign-in page instead, and was not retried through variants.