Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
The Monday After Easter Doesn't Have to Break You
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354: Many church leaders know all too well about the "Elijah complex" – that peculiar spiritual attack that often follows mountaintop ministry experiences like Easter. Surprisingly, several pastors report being spared this post-Easter slump this year, perhaps due to intentional preparation and prayer. One touching story involved podcast listeners who created encouragement cards specifically to combat this phenomenon, demonstrating the power of community awareness and spiritual warfare preparation.
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And welcome back to Pastor Plek's podcast. I'm your host, pastor Plek, along with Pastor Holland, greg, pastor Holland, how are you Doing? Great Thanks, chris. So it has been an Easter weekend, indeed, so tell me what Eastside Community Church did this past weekend.
Speaker 2:We had a laundry outreach on Saturday. We usually do it, you know, the last Saturday of the month, but we did it a week early so that we could invite people from outreach to Easter Sunday and did people come? Uh, some baptisms on Sunday. So we had a packed, you know service for our Easter service. Um, several people from outreach came, brought family members or friends. We had six baptisms. It was glorious.
Speaker 1:All right, so you know, let's go back to COVID. Pre COVID how many did you have for Easter? Like one 50. So you're almost there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were at like almost 140, I think this past Sunday.
Speaker 1:That's really great. We this past weekend had 415 adults across the three services, plus 95 kids, which was great, and so that was our second highest ever, second only to 2019, where we had 495 adults plus another 100 kids. Boom 2026.
Speaker 2:2026.26 back in action back in action, so like we're getting close to that pre-covid numeros yeah, and I've heard uh similar, you know from I mean it's always up and down everyone. You know some people easter is a lower number because everyone in their church travels to go see their family and stuff like that, and so I don't know, we've had ups and downs over the years, but I've heard a lot of people sharing the same kind of story of really seeing big numbers of people coming back to church and getting back involved and I don't know it's encouraging.
Speaker 1:Now, as you and I have always known, the day after Easter is usually a big day of spiritual attack. Did you experience any of that?
Speaker 2:Not, no, not really. We had a long. So after Easter we did also roller skating, because we meet, you know, in a youth entertainment complex. So we did bowling and roller skating like a block party, you know. Tons of people came out for that too, and a glow-in-the-dark egg hunt on the roller rink. Oh wow, and you know we were there cleaning up and shutting down, you know, till like five or something like that, then went home and crashed and on Monday woke up and drove to Houston to see my mom for her birthday. Wow, how was your mom? She's, you know, I think. You know we've talked about battling a tough sickness and so it's a struggle health-wise for her, but got to have a really great visit. It's my daughter's birthday today, so we celebrated my mom's birthday. She got to celebrate my daughter. We got to have good quality time together and got to pray for my mom and encourage her. All the kids made her cards. Oh, that's great. So it was a really sweet visit. And, yeah, just praying for a miracle.
Speaker 1:Way to go, way to go. Well, yeah, we'll be praying alongside you for that, because that's a big deal.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so doing that all day to answer your question, I didn't feel like any spiritual attack or anything like that. Just felt the encouragement from Sunday and then thankfulness for being able to see my mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that I personally didn't get any spiritual attack on Monday, although Adrian and I probably experienced a little. We had a little argument on the Friday before Good Friday. We had a little argument and then we made it through because we recognized the spiritual attack-edness of the weekend Boom, and then Monday we were gloriously happy campers, Nice. But yeah, I do feel like a lot of churches are experiencing the spiritual attack that comes with the. I call it the Elijah complex, where you kind of call down fire from heaven, you kill off all the bad guys and then one person says something, you freak out and you get depressed, and so I think that is. I think I was like that last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think last year the Monday after yeah that's right.
Speaker 1:I was feeling that, yeah, you were. But here's what's really cool when we talked about the spiritual attack of monday, uh, after easter, um, people from this podcast, this very podcast, the listeners that have been loyal followers, what do you call your?
Speaker 2:followers. You have a name um mighty plex stars. Pastor plex Plex. Pastor Plex stars, I don't know what. What do you call your listeners? Pastor Plex people? Uh, and so some. Pastor Plex people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they, they. They made a card for me and like, gave it to me on Sunday morning in preparation for what would be a Monday, and I think their prayers were definitely heard by the Lord and I had a great day. That's awesome. That was wild man, that is really day, and I think their prayers were definitely heard by the Lord and I had a great day.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:That was wild man that is really sweet, hey. So all you guys out there, I really want you know from my heart to yours thank you for that card, Thank you for the way that you have been building into me. It was a very awesome experience.
Speaker 2:Okay, some, some kids in my church, I they at their school. They get points for being good and stuff like that and they can cash them in and get something from the store. And three kids pooled their points together to get me a Bible as a gift for their pastor.
Speaker 1:That is so great. I felt pretty blessed by that.
Speaker 2:Hey, that is about as blessed as a gift. We have some great churches that is pretty awesome. Yeah, man. Hey, that is about as blessed as it gets. We have some great churches that is pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, way to go church people out there. We're really grateful for that, especially if you're buying your pastor a Bible. That's a big win Way to go. Okay, so then let's talk about what did you talk about on Easter.
Speaker 2:So we were doing a series through our core values. We have eight s's and we did the final s on easter, which was spreading the gospel. It's a lot of s? Uh-huh. Final one we did matthew 28.
Speaker 2:So just read matthew 28 the account of the resurrection, the empty tomb, and then jesus um sending uh first the women yeah, so you know, it's about worshiping jesus and then going and spreading the gospel nice, and yeah, it was about worshiping Jesus and then going and spreading the gospel Nice and yeah it was great Way to go, okay, so for us we talked about Romans 5, 8, and that was fun.
Speaker 1:I told some fun stories. It was funny that sometimes I'm a little nervous about preaching through an epistle because there's not a lot of narrative there. An epistle because there's not a lot of narrative there, like you're having, the preacher creates the narrative around the epistle. Because you kind of have to formulate what's the story, what's happening, who's Paul writing to and why and when and when you jump right into the middle of the epistle, it can be a little challenging.
Speaker 1:It's not like you're watching Jesus and the resurrection, the guards at the tomb freaking out, losing their minds. You know getting paid.
Speaker 2:She's saying your sermon was harder than mine. Because, I did. No, that's basically.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just saying that, yeah, it was harder for me not to do it a narrative style, because that's the way I pretty much always. I think this is the first time I've ever gone a non-narrative direction, yeah, and it turned out okay nice. I was sort of surprised, um, so yeah, we actually had a three people. We had a bunch of people raise their hand to receive jesus I don't know if they all came through, but I had three people follow up. So, um, one, uh and to send him the baptism course. He, he, he received christ and that's awesome. Then talked to us afterwards about getting baptized. And then we had an awesome guy from our deaf ministry who said he made a decision for Christ and he wants to get baptized, which was great, and the fact that he's a teenager, he's a high school kid. That was um deaf and he but he could talk, it was, it was I'd never I hadn't experienced that. So he was, he was really gifted at communicating. I couldn't even tell he was deaf. He had kind of like I had to figure it out that he couldn't hear and so someone's translating no, no, he was just talking to me no, I'm saying for the sermon
Speaker 2:you have a translation team, a deaf ministry. We have a deaf ministry and through that he received the gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. It's amazing. So, yeah, our first service has a deaf ministry and they are so great and they serve faithfully as volunteers and it's really encouraging to see. So if you only come to second service and you don't see first service, it's kind of a powerful experience to watch the deaf worship over on the as you're looking at the stage, the right side. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:So what we talked about was Romans 5a that God demonstrated his love for us in this. That, while we're still sinners, christ died for us and we talked that love compelled Jesus to die on the cross for us in this. That, while we're still sinners, christ died for us and we talked that love compelled Jesus to die on the cross for us. Love compelled Jesus to endure the wrath of God for us, and I got to kind of share some of my fun thoughts on how we actually already believe in hell. We just don't like to call it God's wrath. We rather use the word karma or instant karma even more.
Speaker 1:So, right, we have just weak theology out there, but we still believe in justice, and so I talked a little about that and then finally landed the plane on. Love compelled Jesus to reconcile us to God. One of the big struggles that we have in our culture is we don't know what reconciliation looks like. We saw our parents fight and then they just got divorced. Or we saw people hurt us and were're like you're dead to me, uh, so that's kind of where our culture has gone reconciliation wise. And I said that god's different and wants to have relationship with you so that's where we land the plane.
Speaker 1:Um, there was some big news this week, also in christendom, if you will, if you can call it that. I'm not sure if that still counts, okay uh, I don't know if you will, if you can call it that.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if that still counts. Okay, I don't know if you read about this or heard about it, saw anything about it, but the Pope passed, that's right. So I want us to talk a little bit about Pope Francis and kind of like where you felt that, how he did as a pope, we can kind of mourn collectively for him, thank God for his service to the church, but where were you at on matters of where he was, with just his basic theology?
Speaker 2:He. Well, for starters, he's catholic, so you know that's different starting off already on. Uh, you know, for us as protestants, um, we are those who said you are wrong, right to the catholics um.
Speaker 1:So, first off, he's wrong.
Speaker 2:All right, that's that's, you know, uh, this is what it is. So, as protestants, obviously there's some pretty significant theological differences, but even, um, setting those things aside, um, he was commonly like had a pretty liberal position about salvation, essentially saying that it was maybe trying to remember how, six months ago, or I'm trying to remember when it was a while back, maybe, yeah, maybe September I was trying to look at something.
Speaker 2:I took a note about it, but he had uh, there's a video of him like at this uh, like youth yeah, the youth kids um conference or something like that multi-faith conference, and basically he was saying like all religions are um a pathway to god and different people trying to get to god, and he was asking the kids questions like do you think you know one religion? You know I can religion, you know I can't. I'm not going to say my religion is better than yours, like to the Hindu and the Muslim kid and stuff. They're all you know like equal, so very liberal in terms of just like you know, borderline universalism, essentially Um and uh, yeah, I mean when you, when you're that loose with salvation as opposed to that was an opportunity for him to be like hey, kids, here's what you need to know. There's one way to God Jesus Christ, like boom.
Speaker 1:You know, tell him the truth, like yeah, why, I mean why, yeah? So I feel like I think in 2013, he goes the Lord has redeemed all of us, not just Catholics, everyone, even the atheists.
Speaker 2:And you're like yeah, and I've got some Catholic friends who you know would be like well, what he meant by that is this and you know, pope, apologists, and I don't know. I mean I don't know his intentions. Only God knows someone's heart, but all we have to judge is their, their words, their actions and so like. There's a lot you know that he taught that was very liberal, very borderline, universalism and um, uh, affirming of um unbiblical, you know, view of sexuality and marriage and um, there's a lot that he was just kind of liberal and progressive on, I think yeah, and I think that's where it should be interesting to see who the cardinals pick to be the next pope.
Speaker 1:So the pope before him, pope Benedict, I thought was pretty solid. Honestly, he was great. For a catholic, alright. So yeah, for a catholic, he was great. And then now for a catholic yeah, for a catholic, all right. So yeah, for a catholic, uh, he was. He was pretty, like you know, salvation by grace, through faith, and he was able to articulate it, which is rare, um. But whereas, whereas pope francis was like same-sex attraction is not a sin, uh, he would just be like in the acting on it category of sinful, yeah, and he at least did not bless or recognize same-sex marriages. So, anyway, but what he did say was like who am I to judge? You spoke in reference to gay people seeking God with goodwill, and you're like, okay, I think he meant to emphasize mercy and humility, but not change the doctrinal stance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, definitely mercy and humility, but not change the doctrinal stance. Yeah, yeah, definitely. In terms of just his disposition, mercy and humility was. You know, I think, pretty clearly how he carried himself and the posture that he had. But mercy and humility divorced from truth and justice, it's false humility, yeah.
Speaker 1:So anyway, yeah. So I'm excited for the Catholics to get a pope that is more doctrinally in line with even just basic Catholic doctrine. I'm good with that. I'm praying for a Protestant pope. It's one of the things where the Pope has so much sway over Catholics, as he probably should. He's the head of the Catholic Church. I would really like someone to just be theologically on board, solid dude. That would just sort of bring back a sense of, I don't know, renewal and reformation. There you go, yeah, I know Some reformation. Yeah. But there you go, yeah, I know some reformation. Yeah, anytime you have like, because I think their thing is, uh, scripture plus tradition plus magisterium or something is where they get church like authority, uh for life.
Speaker 2:and I think you got papal infallibility. And so I mean, if the pope says, hey, this, we're believing Protestant doctrine now.
Speaker 1:Win, win. You know, if you wanted to Holland, you could infiltrate the Catholic Church, become a priest, work your way up, become Pope and then boom, you change the whole thing.
Speaker 2:You don't think it's too late to get started on that path, you know listen.
Speaker 1:I mean, god can do all things, I don't know. All right, well, all right. So let's talk about where you feel like evangelicals in the culture at large. Where are we looking at for the next thing that we're talking about? I think one of the things that's coming up is men and women roles of men and women in church. I think that's going to be a big thing coming up, I think. How does the church approach homosexuality? I think that's something that the Catholic church is probably going to have to deal with. And then, how do you navigate a post-literate Christian culture when it comes to things such as getting alone with God to read the Scripture? Any thoughts on?
Speaker 2:that Post-literate, meaning you're talking about people just being so obsessed with their phones nobody reads books anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean they read stuff. They read text messages. Lol JK BRB. I mean they read stuff, they read text messages. Lol JK BRB. But they have a hard time with being focused on words for more than five minutes.
Speaker 2:My take on. Virtually every systemic and societal problem comes back to fathers. Lead your families well, yeah, do family worship. Bring your kids to church, serve in your church, teach the Bible to your kids, love the Lord Jesus, and you can, even from a. In a post-literate culture, the church can raise a counterculture. Um, within that, yeah, always, I appreciate that All right.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so I do feel like that. So, as the the church moves forward in the next era, uh, I feel like this is where more and more men and women's roles which I think the Catholics have done a pretty good job of making distinct roles for men and women to serve the church ultimately, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:Pope Francis was. That was one thing that he was actually like kind of firm on, which was interesting. He was firm on what I believe, like they. He was asked about like women's ordination and he was just like no, Huh, ordination. And he was just like no, huh.
Speaker 2:And um they're, you know, usually um a softer stance on homosexuality transgenderism tends to go hand in hand with egalitarianism and um, women's ordination and if I'm I may be wrong on this because I'm I'm not like some, you know, Pope expert, but you know I try to keep up with news clips and videos and things like that. But I remember seeing some video of him where he was asked about that and I think he held the line on that one. And, yeah, technically held the line when it came to homosexuality as well, but I think was too soft on that in terms of saying we're not going to officially bless same-sex marriages but we are going to bless the couples themselves. I think is the position that he took and just pray for God's blessing on their relationship. So he had some interesting positions that were not really traditional on their relationship. So he had some interesting positions that were not really traditional.
Speaker 1:No, it was wild, but I do appreciate. He said the issue is closed about ordaining women. Yeah, that to me.
Speaker 2:I thought he was firm on that one.
Speaker 1:Like super firm, like it's not open to reconsideration. But then he got into the role of women deacons, which we have at our church because we believe that that's scriptural that women can be deacons which we have in our church because we believe that that's scriptural that women can be deacons and he goes. Hey, in 2016, francis commissioned a study to study the role of women deacons in the early church. The commission explored whether women could serve in a restored permanent diaconate, a step below priesthood, focused on service, not sacramental duties like consecrating the Eucharist. And then a second commission was launched in 2020, but no decision has been made yet.
Speaker 1:Uh, he's opening to stay in the historical role, but hasn't endorsed female ordination as deacons, which is interesting. Yeah, like that's where they're pretty hardcore on the tradition and uh, you know, and this is where you can go either way on that um, deacon just means servant and so, great, your official role of the church is the office of servant, which is great. I think that's great and me personally, I kind of go from the route of that could be open to a man or woman based on women being called deacons or servants, and that's yeah, I think my kind of my, my study on that is there's been.
Speaker 2:You know, you said deacon just means servant. You could go well. Elder just means older person, but it has a more formal definition in terms of an office. So the. If the office entails authority over others, then for um a woman to woman to be a woman, who's a deacon? If that office is just a serving role, that's one thing, but if it entails authority over men, it would be violating 1 Timothy, 2 and 12.
Speaker 1:You have to be a true servant, Violating yeah. 1 Timothy, 2, 12. You have to be a true servant, yeah, and that could be organizing, facilitating all sorts of things to you know, like, hey, as the elders commission, I need you to organize this event, and I don't think anyone's going to be that would find that in violation of, because there's no biblical authority that we're talking about there.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, there's some traditions that deacon is an authoritative role. It's an office that carries authority.
Speaker 1:The deacon is essentially an elder, which I always wondered why they went that route.
Speaker 2:Do you know why? I don't know, it's different. It's looked different in different um uh branches of you know baptist churches, um. But yeah, essentially some the deacons had an authoritative role um that was functioned like how like an elder board would work um, whereas uh, the pastor was focused on just preaching and teaching yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:It was. It was interesting that. So I guess the only elder of like some Baptist church is that the deacon board. The deacon board. They were not pastors, the only elder then was the pastor and that was like a pastor-led church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the deacons, you know, were in charge of so many different things. I think, trying to follow the model of taking, you know, acts chapter six we're in charge of so many different things I think, trying to follow the model of taking Acts 6, we need to focus on the word and prayer and not serving tables, and then you take that model the deacons take a lot of things off the pastor's plate, but what ends up happening is the deacons end up kind of functionally being in charge of everything other than preaching and kind of running the church, um, as pseudo elders right, it gets confusing yeah okay, well, that's just a quick, quick little thought.
Speaker 1:Some some ecclesiology there, for, uh, as we take a look at pope francis and his uh legacy post, pope benedict, pope benedict only, I think, served like five years really yeah, and I think he didn't like die in office. Um, he just resigned, which I thought was. I thought that was sort of wild. Yeah, eight years, eight years okay yeah, so kind of odd that he what's the average time for a pope to be a pope?
Speaker 1:I don't know you know that is. I actually think they have a Pope. Let's see. That would be seven to eight years. That's really Okay. Yeah, it's kind of wild. So Pope Pius IX served 31 years. Pope John Paul II served 27 years. Okay, so you've got St Peter, traditionally the first Pope around 34 years. Pope Pius IX, longest verified, 31 years, 1846 to 1878. John Paul II 1978-2005. Pope Benedict. And then you've got, and then Pope Francis just died, so he was at 12 years. So anyway, it's kind of wild how the popes roll.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:There you go. Now you know, yeah, no one's half the battle. Hey, listen, we love your questions. Please send us a shout, let us know what you're thinking. We talk faith, culture, everything in between. We'd love to hear from you, so, from our house to yours. Have an awesome week of worship.