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Father Under Fire: A Westlake Church Rallies Around its Pastor After Charges that He Sexually Abused His Adopted Daughter

By Doug Brown

[Editor’s note: This content includes accounts of sexual abuse and may be triggering for some readers.]

Faith is a powerful thing, and the flock at Church on the Rise in Westlake has it in spades. Some beliefs, after all, cannot be shaken: faith in God, faith in their religion, or faith in their pastor, no matter what prosecutors and an alleged victim say.

That’s why, service after service, week after week, families continue to pack the modern Westlake church to take in the word of pastor Paul Endrei — simply Pastor Paul, as they call him — the church’s founder who’s out of jail after posting bond, the pastor who’s awaiting trial on six felony charges of allegedly sexually abusing his adopted daughter….