WHITE SWAN -- The wood steeple of Wilbur Memorial United Methodist Church has long stood watch above this small unincorporated community deep in the Yakama reservation.

The modest church runs a food bank, hosts an after-school program and serves as a meeting place for a group combating underage drinking.

And next month it will celebrate its 150th anniversary -- making it one of the oldest churches in Central Washington.

But even after a century and a half, the initial clash between Christianity and Native American beliefs still echoes.

Usually the Gospel is preached here, but a recent Sunday gathering was set aside for healing.

A dozen tribal singers gathered around a drum at the church and chanted an ancient warrior song while the congregation listened.

"Our lives are richer because of the melding of tradition and culture, and that's the only way we can make this a better place," Pastor MarLu Scott said.

Just four years after the Yakamas signed the Treaty of 1855 with the United States, services began in a barn in Medicine Valley, a still remote sage-covered swath of land tilting toward the Cascades.

Accidental fires destroyed the barn and two additional buildings where services were held before the current church was built in 1969.

When the church began spreading the Gospel on the reservation, the effort was often paired with intolerance of tribal customs. And even today, opinions are mixed over the church's founder, James Harvey Wilbur.

He was stern, stood 6-foot-2, weighed about 300 pounds and was rarely challenged by anyone, according to a biography, "They Were Giants," written by Maurice Helland in 1980.

Once he picked up two arguing Yakamas by the hair and cracked their heads together, subduing them both. It was an act that earned him the name An-e-hoo-ee, meaning "the bear" in Yakama, according to the book.

Citing his family's oral history, tribal elder Johnson Meninick said Wilbur often forced his beliefs on Yakamas, and once destroyed the drums of singing tribal members in Satus.

But tribal members who belong to the church recall a different Wilbur, one who never tried to force his beliefs on their people.

Longtime church member Elizabeth Henry said her family's oral history described Wilbur as a man who cared about her people.

"They got along with Father Wilbur because he treated them with respect. He didn't demand anything. He showed them he cared for them," said Henry, the great-granddaughter of Chief White Swan, who attended the church regularly and inspired many tribal members to do the same.

If critics are right, the church's history isn't much different than many other early churches in the West.

"It was pretty much an understanding that Native American culture was primitive and that it really wasn't something worthy of preserving or relating to," said J. Gordon Melton, who teaches American Religious History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and heads the Institute for the Study of American Religion.

"The attempt really was to Europeanize the American Indian. European clothing, hair cut, the whole bit," he said.

Citing oral history, Yakama drummer Brycien Neiman recounted how tribal members were told their beliefs were wrong.

"'God has sent us, the government has sent us to civilize your people,'" he said tribal members were told by priests during that time. "Sometimes it takes centuries for everything to settle down."

In its early days, the church boasted nearly 800 members, mostly Yakamas. George Waters, Chief White Swan's brother, became the first ordained Native American minister in the Northwest Methodist Conference in 1889.

Today, the church has a much smaller congregation. Membership has dwindled to roughly 35 active members -- about half tribal members.

Changes in leadership and disputes over whether the church should focus on mission work is much to blame for the decline, Pastor Scott said.

The church has also struggled to find Native American leaders to help run the congregation.

"It's so ordinary for pastors to graduate kids and see them through the ministry," said Scott. "But it's a rarity here. They drop out of school."

Despite the struggles, the church continues to be a major part of this community of 2,000 residents.

Its food bank feeds about 1,300 people a month. It hosts an after-school program serving about 20 youth, and allows a group working to stem underage drinking to meet there monthly.

By serving as a community gathering place, the church often helps bring together Christians and traditional tribal members, who practice the Washat belief, which honors creation.

Differences between the two faiths, however, don't thwart friendships, said Ella Bellinger McKinstry, a tribal member whose family belonged to the church.

She points to her father, a church member and non-Indian, who built friendships with many tribal members who practiced traditional beliefs, she said.

They'd given him countless gifts over the years including beaded vests, rifles and axes, she said.

"When my father died, they all came to my house," she recalled.

It's that kind of melding that needs to continue in this small community marred with poverty and alcoholism, Scott said.

"Where there is pain, there is growth," she said. "There has to be, otherwise we will wither in bitterness and die."

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.