Tab 1
Liberty Counsel dragged Gavin Newsom to the Supreme Court for banning church worship – and won.
Now the same organization is heading to federal court for a Wyoming pastor a tribe just tried to banish for preaching the Bible.
What the tribe put in writing before filing that case is going to cost them badly.
Sarah Lucas founded Foundations for Nations nine years ago on the Wind River Reservation in Arapahoe, Wyoming – on land she owns outright, not tribal land.
She built a 21,000 square-foot church, an indoor playground, a food bank, a clothing giveaway operation, and free after-school programs for children on a reservation where addiction, unemployment, and poverty run deep.
Then came July 5, 2026.
As the Northern Arapaho Sundance ceremony was wrapping up, Lucas delivered a sermon from the Bible.
She called on her congregation to pray for the people coming out of the ceremony.
And she told them Jesus is the only God they should be praying to.
Someone filmed it.
The video went viral, and Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Keenan Groesbeck announced on Facebook that Foundations for Nations had to go.
The tribes passed ordinances in July requiring all outside religious groups to get tribal approval before operating on the reservation – a direct shot at Lucas and her church.
Her youth programs were immediately suspended.
The church is now banned from transporting children to and from the reservation.
Then the tribe made a mistake that Liberty Counsel will be quoting in federal court for months.
In an Aug. 31 memo, the Northern Arapaho council acknowledged in writing that "jurisdictional limits" likely prevent them from regulating church activity on private land.
They filed the ordinances anyway.
Liberty Counsel Takes Arapaho Tribe to Federal Court Over First Amendment Rights on Private Land
Here is what the sympathetic media covering this story won't tell you.
When Lucas chose her building site, she made sure to purchase fee land inside the reservation's boundaries rather than lease from the tribe – because she knew exactly what tribal landlords could eventually do.
She fed families, clothed children, and repaired homes on that reservation for nine years without a single conflict – until she quoted the Bible.
Now Groesbeck's council is invoking ordinances requiring her to get their permission before she can preach the Gospel on her own property.
That is a government body – tribal councils are governments – requiring a pastor to obtain prior approval for religious speech on land that government does not own.
Courts across this country have struck down prior restraint schemes like this every time state and local governments have attempted them.
Liberty Counsel's argument is straightforward: private land ownership shields Lucas from tribal banishment authority, and the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause protects her right to preach what the Bible says regardless of who doesn't like the message.
After putting their jurisdictional concession in writing, the council then moved to strangle the ministry through transportation bans on children.
That is the definition of overreach, and Liberty Counsel was built to fight exactly this in federal court.
Arapaho Tribal Council Wrote Down Its Jurisdictional Weakness and Liberty Counsel Found It
Groesbeck invoked the phrase "kill the Indian, save the man" – a slogan from the boarding school era – to describe what Lucas was doing on the reservation.
Lucas's sermon said what the Bible plainly says: that Jesus Christ is Lord and that believers should not pray to other gods.
She broke no law, set foot on no tribal land, and harmed no one.
She preached on her own property to her own congregation.
Groesbeck posted his banishment directive on Facebook, the council passed ordinances targeting the church specifically, youth programs were suspended, and the death threats that followed were serious enough that the FBI confirmed it is aware of the situation.
Liberty Counsel has won all seven cases it argued or briefed before the U.S. Supreme Court in recent years – including forcing Newsom to reopen California churches after 324 days of illegal shutdown.
A tribal council that put its jurisdictional weakness in writing is a far weaker opponent than the Governor of California.
Every conservative in this country who has watched Christian expression targeted, punished, and suppressed needs to watch what Liberty Counsel does to this overreach in Wyoming federal court.
Sources:
- Sarah Elmquist Squires, "Christian church vows to fight tribal order to leave Wind River Reservation," WyoFile, July 17, 2026.
- County 10 Staff, "Arapaho leadership directs Foundations for Nations to leave Wind River Reservation," County 10, July 15, 2026.
- Liberty Counsel Staff, "Big Wins, but More is Ahead," Liberty Counsel, December 22, 2025.
