The Second Strand — Lutheran, Evangelical, and the Independent Schools

1878 to the present — St. Paul’s parochial school, Zion’s school of 1892, and the academy web of today

St. Paul’s Lutheran school: The city’s non-Catholic school web is as old as its Catholic one’s second generation. St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, organized in 1878 with its first church dedicated August 21, 1878, at Jefferson and William streets, kept a parochial school coeval with the church itself: in the parish’s infancy the pastor, the Rev. Henry Siek, taught the school himself; afterwards a teacher was employed; and by 1907 two teachers were constantly engaged — Howard’s county history and Alerding’s diocesan history agreeing, as the banked Religion fragment carries them. The congregation removed to Laurel Road, its new church dedicated in October 1990, and its school does not stand in the city’s present roster; its closing date is not in the records read and is named as a gap.

Zion’s school: The Evangelical churches kept a school of their own: Zion Church, at 231 South St. Peter Street, established in 1888 by the Rev. Martin Goffeney, its pastor from the beginning, had a school established in 1892 and a parsonage built in 1895, in Howard’s 1907 survey as carried in Religion. The English and Swedish Lutheran congregations of 1907 — Holy Trinity English at Sherman and Lindsey, and the Swedish Gloria Dei at Chapin and Kerr — carry no school in the record read; the documented nineteenth-century non-Catholic set therefore stands at two schools, St. Paul’s and Zion’s, printed at that size.

The Lutheran web today: Lutheran schooling in the city runs today through a consortium rather than a parish: Resurrection Lutheran Academy, founded in 1998 by its own verified profile, at 6840 Nimtz Parkway, is owned and operated by the Michiana Lutheran Education Association, an association of the area’s Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod congregations whose membership is open to all Lutheran congregations in the greater South Bend area — its member churches named as Our Redeemer, St. Paul of South Bend, St. Paul’s of Niles, Michigan, and St. Peter. St. Paul’s of South Bend is the congregation of 1878: its own parochial school is gone from the record, and the congregation now sustains the city’s Lutheran school jointly with its sister congregations, the school accredited by National Lutheran School Accreditation and serving about one hundred students from preschool through eighth grade. The pattern is the Catholic web’s present pattern arrived at independently — the parish school become a shared school.

The independent strand: Around both stand the city’s other documented private schools, printed at the size their records carry. Michiana Christian Academy, established in 1976 and affiliated with the Deer Run Church of Christ, stands at 2730 South Ironwood Drive, preschool through eighth grade. The South Bend Junior Academy, the Seventh-day Adventist school at 1910 Altgeld Street, serves kindergarten through eighth grade as part of that church’s school network. Community Baptist Christian School, at 5715 Miami Street, runs kindergarten through twelfth grade. Ironwood Christian Academy stands in the directories as an Associate of Christian Schools International school. Little Flower Montessori is the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis’s surviving South Bend school work, the congregation of St. Jude’s and Elm Court, credited in the Tribune’s 2001 account with blessing the area with the Montessori school and the Forever Learning Institute at Harvest House. Trinity School at Greenlawn and the Stanley Clark School stand whole in the banked Schools fragment and are not retold here.

Sources:

1. The banked Religion fragment of this history — St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and its parochial school, from Howard (1907) and the congregation’s church book; and Zion Church’s school of 1892, from Howard’s 1907 survey.
2. Resurrection Lutheran Academy, the academy’s own site and FAQ, rlasouthbend.com — the Michiana Lutheran Education Association’s ownership, its Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod doctrine, its member churches, and its National Lutheran School Accreditation; the academy’s verified Private School Review profile for the founding year 1998, the Nimtz Parkway address and about one hundred students.
3. Private School Review and CountyOffice school directories for South Bend, consulted November 2026 — Michiana Christian Academy (established 1976, Deer Run Church of Christ), the South Bend Junior Academy, Community Baptist Christian School and Ironwood Christian Academy, at directory size.
4. The South Bend Tribune (2001), as carried in the Michiana Business Research Library record — the Sisters of St. Joseph’s Little Flower Montessori School and Forever Learning Institute.