The Granberry family moved from Birmingham, Alabama to the Yakama Reservation in June 2003 with a desire to "love our first neighbors well" and, ultimately, start a church in the town of White Swan. The goal of the Granberry family, and staff who have since joined the Sacred Road team, has been threefold: share the gospel, make disciples, and equip the saints for ministry. Moved into action by Isaiah 58:6-12, much of ministry life has been building relationships within our community, meeting basic needs through Mercy Ministry, and sharing the gospel with those around us. We desire to be salt and light in our communities! In 2007, Sacred Road began serving regularly on the Warm Springs Reservation and in January 2023, we officially installed a team of full-time staff in Oregon. Learn more about the history of the people.

You can imagine our surprise when, one week after our arrival, a Native lady from the community approached us and asked, "When are you going to start church?" We had not even unpacked yet! We tried to explain that it would probably be a while before folks got to know us and were interested in coming. She said she thought we should start as soon as possible. We told her we'd think and pray about it. One week later she was back and asked again, "When are you going to start church?" We took another stab at explaining to her that it was too early and that no one would come. We found ourselves in the awkward position of trying to explain to her that, in essence, the experts had told us that no one on the reservation would care what "some random white guy and his family from Alabama had to say about the Bible!"  The lady listened patiently, then left. A week later (you guessed it) she came by again asking, "When are you going to start church?" Well, we figured we'd just have to host a Bible Study in an effort to prove to her that it wouldn't work and it wasn’t time. A week later we had our first adult Bible study in the White Swan Community Center. To our amazement, people came! The one-time effort immediately turned into a weekly Tuesday night Bible Study.

Over the course of the first year 100 adults came through the Bible Study! Not every adult came consistently, or even returned, but we hosted 100 adults in the first year of Bible Study nonetheless. The second year, 100 more came! Out of those folks a core group has developed. Since then, we have all been growing in our love for the Lord and our faith in Him.

Among the first 100 adults that attended Bible Study at the Community Center was Wendell, an elder in the community and leader in the Yakama Nation. Wendell approached us with an unconventional idea. He was of the opinion that a spiritual gathering, like our Bible Study, would be better hosted in the Longhouse (a traditional place of worship for the Yakama people). After much prayer, consideration, and counsel, our Tuesday night Bible Study transitioned to the local Longhouse. We found that many of our attendees felt more comfortable meeting in a familiar space and meeting in this location allowed for us to build even deeper relationships with the members of our community and leaders in the tribe.

As our core group grew in numbers and faith, we knew our Bible Study would soon be ready to transition into a church plant. Chris Granberry began pursuing an ordination in the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). On Easter Sunday of 2013, we held our first ever Sunday service for Hope Fellowship Presbyterian Church (the church plant of Sacred Road Ministries)! We were still meeting at the Longhouse at the time. Our Tuesday evening Bible Study transitioned to Sunday evening services.

We knew that, though we appreciated the use of the Longhouse and we were honored to spend time there, we needed our own church building eventually. People in our own church and in churches all across the country began praying that the Lord would provide a property. We bought a building in 2012 and, after many renovations, we had out first Sunday morning church services in our very own building on Easter 2014. Since then, our church family has continued to grown and establish more of a presence in our community. With our own building, our capacity for ministry has only grown. We have more room to park vehicles, more storage for every Ministry Program, and a “home base” for every child, teen, and adult who attend Hope Fellowship Church.

In 2006, through a connection that the Lord provided, the tribal council of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs in central Oregon asked us to send “our people” to their reservation to “share the love and truth and light” that we were bringing to White Swan. The next summer, we sent one short-term team to serve. Following that week, the leaders in Warm Springs asked for “more people and more weeks.” Each summer we worked to send more people for more weeks and by 2018, we were able to send approximately 150 people for four weeks. In January of 2023 we sent Evan and Holly Shaw and Tomo Ito to begin serving full-time in Warm Springs. The Shaws and Tomo had served as Summer Interns in the past and during their internships felt a calling to be a part of Ministry replication in Warm Springs. After getting married in Pennsylvania, Evan and Holly moved to Yakama to begin training under Chris and Mary Granberry. Tomo Ito was originally on track for an Engineering career after graduation from UC Berkley. After the Summer Internship, he began seminary and was ordained through the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). Tomo was installed as an Assistant Pastor at Hope Fellowship PCA Church, the church plant of Sacred Road Ministries, located in White Swan. He spent time training under Pastors Chris Granberry and Joshua Tsavatewa, knowing that his end goal was to Pastor full-time in Warm Springs.

Since being established in Warm Springs, the Shaws and Tomo have begun to further grow and develop the relationships we have in the community there. They have also been able to introduce the local YoungLife group to youth in the Warm Springs community and are heavily involved with the YoungLife Ministry there. We continue to send one-week teams to Warm Springs during the spring and summer seasons.