The church pews sit cold and vacant, devoid of the hundreds of heathen asses that adorned them just one week earlier. Easter had these same pews filled to capacity, with spots in the back so coveted that the uncomfortable shifting of one’s buttocks was felt by the entire row. Now those large crowds are gone, leaving pastors nationwide to breathe a sigh of relief.

“All these carpetbaggers want is the goddamned benediction,” said Pastor Duke Felch of Duluth. “The closing hymn! When is the closing hymn? Doesn’t he know the NCAA tournament begins in an hour? These people may be God’s creations, but preaching the gospel to them is like pissing into the wind.”

With no ringtones blaring, sarcastic shouts of “Hallelujah” from the back, or people eating messy breakfast sandwiches while loudly talking over the pastor’s sermon, regular parishioners felt much more at ease this week. The line for confessionals was also much improved, with the Sacrament of Penance booth only being used as a restroom once.

Easter and Christmas have always been the black sheep of religious services, where every goon in town rolls in to magically erase their past six months of selfish assholery, only to continue the same behavior anew five minutes later. The toughest part for pastors is politely playing along with the hundreds of spiritual deadbeats clogging up the ecclesiastical pipes with their agnostic diarrhea.

“To hell with them!” said Pastor Felch, speaking literally. “Let them do all that wanking in a pit of eternal fire. These pews are reserved for members of the flock who don’t breathe through their mouths throughout the service.”

For most pastors, stage fright is the second largest challenge of Easter services. Each has their own unique way of dealing with the problem. Some use lamaze exercises or pastoral fight clubs to calm their nerves, while others take a more medicinal approach.

“I was so drunk last week that I could barely remember how to read, let alone deliver the sermon I wrote,” said Reverend Claude Hauser of First United Church. “Apparently I was booed while attempting to add an eleventh commandment. If anyone’s wondering, closing the fish on Fridays loophole that no one follows is still a very toxic idea.”

Rev. Hauser specializes in connecting with younger parishioners, and uses a variety of new age techniques. His favorite is making revisions to his sermon after smoking a joint, so he can ensure his words resonate with teenage churchgoers. His fellow clergy members claim he’s very dedicated, and is high roughly 84 percent of the time he’s at work.

“Snatched, boots, stanning, goals AF, sus, sis, Netflix and chill, hella,” said Rev. Hauser. “Is hella still a thing kids say? Is hella snatched, sis? Or is it totally sus? Honestly, Netflix and chilling with high school kids should be goals AF for all clergy. We need to be stanning them boots. Wait, does ‘Netflix and chill’ mean sex? If so, I’m very sorry I used it that way. I don’t want to be sus. Is anyone else hungry for peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches?”

Some pastors, like Greg Manwood of Alibas Church, delve even further into new age relaxation methods by wearing a virtual reality headset during Easter services. The real Easter morning congregation was filled to capacity with hundreds of impatient middle-aged nincompoops attempting to set a half-assed example for their awful children, but the view Pastor Manwood saw through his virtual reality headgear showed only the usual attendees: three elderly women, two homeless men fighting over free communion wafers and the organist, whose snoring can sometimes be heard beyond the pulpit.

It’s not just Christian clergy members dealing with apathy and laziness. Even terrorist groups that hate Christians and western culture see an increase in lukewarm recruits around Easter. Being reminded of holidays they’re supposed to disagree with always brings in the apathetic riffraff.

“The holiday recruits are very disrespectful,” said Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of ISIS. “Always texting while I’m declaring jihad. I can see the glow from your iPhone screen, Ahmed! That is strike two. At strike three, I take the phone away and behead you. Nearly twice as many beheadings around Easter! My arms get very sore. Everyone thinks being the leader of ISIS is all baby camels and bastani, but it’s not.”

Now that Easter has passed like a bad burrito, Christian pastors and terrorist nutjobs alike can rest easy until Christmas, when the next round of pagan deadbeats will fart their way through the pews to salvation. Larger holiday crowds are stressful, but most pastors also see them as a tremendous opportunity to bring distraught churchgoers back into the fold. The bigger the challenge, the larger the reward. Of course, some members of the clergy are better at dealing with the stress than others.

“Get out of here, you agnostic bastards!” shouted Pastor Felch at the closing of his sermon last week. “The Lord has indeed risen, but apparently not before noon on a Sunday. Go home to your basketball games and pornagraphic webcam girls! That’s why this week’s collection plate is filled with Groupon deals and used kleenex. Worthless bastards, the whole lot of you! Come forward, light a candle and finish the charade. See you at Christmas, you ungrateful fucking heathens.”