GRANGER â For its first nine years, the Granger Community Church that the Rev. Mark Beeson founded in 1986 as a United Methodist congregation met in a movie theater, schools and other churches.
Itâs hard to fathom those humble beginnings when looking today at the churchâs massive structures on a sprawling campus on University Drive in Mishawaka, its weekend services that draw about 4,000 people, so many that police officers must direct traffic. But as impressive as that facilities growth might have seemed to outsiders, Beeson, who died Thursday of pancreatic cancer, felt âthe people are the church,â he told The Tribune for a 1996 article about the new churchâs construction plans.