The Remaining Arrivals: Reformed, Evangelical, Brethren, and the Later Churches

Reformed Church organized 1849 — St. Peter’s Evangelical organized 1863 — Brethren congregation in German Township from 1831 — the later arrivals run from the Nazarene mission of 1919 to the Kern Road Mennonite building of 1962

The Reformed Church: The Reformed Church of South Bend was organized in 1849 by the Rev. David McNiesh. The brick church erected in that year at the corner of Lafayette Street and Colfax Avenue was occupied until about 1905, when a new building was erected in its place. The parish was reorganized on March 31, 1870, by the Rev. William J. Skillman. Its most noted pastor was the Rev. N. D. Williamson, who became pastor in July 1872 and was known as Father Williamson to hundreds besides his own members. A mission chapel built in 1873 at Lafayette and Sample streets was afterwards discontinued. The German Reformed and Evangelical traditions represented by this congregation and by the Evangelical churches below entered the United Church of Christ at that denomination’s formation; South Bend’s Congregational presence in the national directories of the 1960s is the Community Congregational Church, at 19671 Cleveland Road.

The Evangelical churches: Howard’s section on the Evangelical Church records St. Peter’s Evangelical Church, organized in 1863, with a brick church at 429 West LaSalle Avenue; Zion Church, at 231 South St. Peter Street, established in 1888 by the Rev. Martin Goffeney, its pastor from the beginning, with a school established in 1892 and a parsonage built in 1895; the First Church Evangelical Association at the northwest corner of Lafayette and Monroe streets; the Mizpah Church at 126 West Monroe Street; the South Bend Evangelical Hungarian Protestant Church at 1422 West Washington Street; and the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church at the corner of Scott and Orchard streets.

The Brethren: Brethren worship in the county is as old as the Methodist class. In German Township, church services were held at an early date and Elder David Miller organized a congregation in 1831; the first church erected there, a brick building of 1851, was German Baptist. The district history of the Church of the Brethren in Northern Indiana lists South Bend among the district’s original congregations, alongside Portage, Baugo, Bremen, and Pine Creek. In the city in 1907 Howard lists the First Brethren Church at 1212 South Michigan Street, the Rev. David Eikenberry pastor; the German Baptist Brethren at the corner of Cushing and Van Buren streets, the Rev. S. F. Sanger pastor; a second German Baptist Brethren church at Indiana Avenue and Miami Street, the Rev. Hiram W. Kreighbaum pastor; and the First United Brethren in Christ Church at 522 South Michigan Street. First Brethren Church continues today at 4909 South Ironwood Drive.

The Mennonites: Howard’s 1907 list already includes a Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church at the corner of Lindsey Street and Harrison Avenue, with Miss Kate Bredemus as pastor. The city’s enduring Mennonite congregation is later. A house gathering in South Bend on February 18, 1959, was the first meeting of the future members of Kern Road Mennonite Church; the group, led by Hope Rescue Mission director Tobe Schmucker, called itself the South Bend Mennonite Fellowship, worshipped biweekly, and planned a new urban church in the Indiana-Michigan Mennonite Conference. Its first Sunday morning worship was held at the Hope Rescue Mission on January 17, 1960, and Carl J. Rudy was installed as pastor that year. In 1961 the congregation purchased land at 18211 Kern Road and called itself Kern Road Chapel, the name intentionally omitting the word Mennonite; the building was dedicated in 1962 and the first Sunday service at the new location held on April 14, 1962. Under Pastor Edwin F. Rempel, who came in 1979, a new constitution carried the name change from Kern Road Chapel to Kern Road Mennonite Church. The congregation is an Anabaptist congregation of Mennonite Church USA.

Christian Science: Howard’s 1907 survey lists the First Church of Christ, Scientist, at the corner of Madison and Main streets, in the downtown of that day. The congregation continues in South Bend; it moved in 2017 to 1801 South Ironwood Drive, holding its first services at the new location in May of that year.

The Adventist beginning: The Seventh-day Adventist message was first preached in Indiana at South Bend: Joseph Bates delivered a sermon in the town in July 1849, marking the inception of Adventism in the state, and the first Indiana converts followed at LaPorte in July 1850. The Indiana Conference of the church was officially organized on September 20, 1872.

The Church of the Nazarene: In 1919 Marcus Silvers started a mission on East Sample Street in South Bend. Two years later the mission was organized as the First Church of the Nazarene and moved into a temporary building on Milton Street; in 1922 it moved to East Indiana Avenue, where it stayed until 1930, then to Leer Street, and in time to a new building on Colfax. In 1991 the church moved to its present location on Ironwood Road, as South Bend First Church of the Nazarene.

The Unitarians: South Bend’s Unitarian congregation is a twentieth-century founding, not a pioneer one. The congregation formed as a fellowship in 1949, and by 1952 it had gained enough families — fifty — to become a member of the American Unitarian Association; a charter was issued on February 22, 1952. The group voted to merge with the Universalists on April 12, 1959, and became a Unitarian Universalist congregation at the national merger of 1961. Its wood-framed mansion church was fire-bombed in August 1968. The congregation moved into a new church home in August 2014, at 801 East Washington Street, and in 2025 voted to adopt Unitarian Universalists of South Bend as its public identity.

The Friends: The South Bend Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends worships in the unprogrammed manner, without ritual, liturgy, creed, sermon, or prepared music, meeting on Sunday mornings at 333 West Colfax Avenue. No organization date for the meeting was established for this survey.

The Latter-day Saints: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organized the South Bend Indiana Stake on October 30, 1977, with Kenneth Bryan Fugal as its first president; the stake belongs to the Indianapolis Indiana Temple district. The date of the first ward in the city was not established for this survey.

Sources:

1. Timothy Edward Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), Secs. 3, 8, and 10, and the German Township section — the Reformed Church of 1849 and its 1870 reorganization, St. Peter’s Evangelical (1863) and Zion (1888), the Brethren, United Brethren, Mennonite Brethren in Christ, and First Church of Christ, Scientist, listings of 1907, and Elder David Miller’s 1831 German Township congregation.
2. Northern Indiana District, Church of the Brethren, district history — South Bend among the original Northern Indiana congregations.
3. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, “Kern Road Mennonite Church (South Bend, Indiana, USA)” — the February 18, 1959 house gathering, the 1960 first worship and Rudy pastorate, the 1961 Kern Road purchase, the 1962 dedication, and the name change under Rempel; the congregation’s own history page confirms the early-1960s Kern Road Chapel founding.
4. First Church of Christ, Scientist, South Bend, the congregation’s own site — the 2017 removal to 1801 South Ironwood Drive.
5. Lafayette Seventh-day Adventist Church, “Our Beliefs & History,” printing the Indiana Conference history — Joseph Bates’s July 1849 sermon in South Bend, the 1850 LaPorte converts, and the September 20, 1872 organization of the Indiana Conference.
6. South Bend First Church of the Nazarene, “Our History” — the 1919 Sample Street mission, the 1921 organization, and the moves of 1922, 1930, and 1991.
7. Unitarian Universalists of South Bend, “Our History,” and Unitarian Universalist Association, MidAmerica Region, History Vignette 6 — the 1949 fellowship, the February 22, 1952 charter, the 1959 merger vote, the August 1968 fire-bombing, the August 2014 move, and the 2025 name.
8. Friends General Conference, Quaker Finder, South Bend Friends Meeting — the meeting’s unprogrammed worship and its 333 West Colfax Avenue address.
9. List of Stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, United States, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Indiana — the South Bend Indiana Stake organized October 30, 1977, Kenneth Bryan Fugal first president, Indianapolis temple district.
10. National Association of Congregational Christian Churches handbooks (1963, 1964), member-church lists — South Bend, Community Congregational Church, 19671 Cleveland Road.