Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ

Began in home prayer meetings of Elder R. D. Wilson and Mother Bettie Wilson — reckoned ninety years old by the City of South Bend in 2022 — 710 Napoleon Street

Founding: The South Bend Common Council's Special Proclamation No. 06-2022 records that Greater Holy Temple "started in the home of the late Elder R. D. Wilson and his devoted wife, Mother Bettie Wilson" and was "birthed out of these prayer meetings." The proclamation looks back over "the last 90 years" — a beginning about 1932. A published congregational history, Living in faith: a history of the Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, 1925–2008 (TBL Publishing, 2008), carries an earlier opening date, 1925, in its title; the two datings stand in the record side by side.

Leaders and building: The proclamation names Mother Josephine Redding and Elder Harrison Benjamin Wiley among the church's leaders, and Pastor Leroy Webster Sutton, under whom a new sanctuary and the Joy Center were built — the center afterward renamed for Sutton. The church stands at 710 Napoleon Street, South Bend, under Pastor Lee D. Ross at the time of the proclamation.

Sources:

1. City of South Bend, Common Council Special Proclamation No. 06-2022 (docs.southbendin.gov) — the Wilson home prayer meetings, the ninety-year reckoning, the named leaders, the Sutton building program, and the Napoleon Street address.
2. Living in faith: a history of the Greater Holy Temple Church of God in Christ, 1925–2008 (TBL Publishing, 2008), bibliographic record — the 1925 opening date carried in the published history's title.