Stage One: Caring Pastor Jeff cares, or at least he used to.

He cared about his familyhe spent time with his children and felt disappointed whenever he couldnt regularly take his wife on a date. Pastor Jeff cared about peoplethe homeless, the orphans, and the lost. Pastor Jeff cared about his work he was excited to see what God was doing through his church. Everyone liked Pastor Jeff and wanted to be like him. Stage Two: Unfocused or Unrealistic Expectations Caring is a fire that burns, and burning requires fuel. The problem was that the better Pastor Jeff did at anything, the more great opportunities came his way. Pastor Jeff cared, so he tried to honor every open door God brought into his life. Soon there were more care-fires than there was Pastor Jeff to burn, and he started to be consistently tired; not just physically tired, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually tired. Stage Three: Fatigue Frequently Pastor Jeff began to find that he didnt have it to give to his family, church, or friends. His talent and likeability covered things well enough that few people could notice, except his wife. Instead of taking this as a warning to slow down, Pastor Jeff felt guilty that he wasnt able to give his best anymore. At first this guilt and shame provided a great energy boost and got him back in the game. This happened several times over the course of a couple years. He thought it might be a mild bout of depression or fatigue, so he started taking some vitamin supplements and working out. That helped for a while. Stage Four: Motivation by Guilt or Shame But the fatigue kept coming back. Pastor Jeff tried not to notice, but he could tell he was becoming more cynical. His once tender heart was growing callous. Pastor Jeff was a caring guy who was starting not to care. He would help when needs arose, but it felt like a burden. Now even the guilt he felt about not caring wasnt enough to jar him back into tender-hearted love. A sense of duty was about all Pastor Jeff had left. Strangely, this began to cause him to resent those around him. His friends wanted him to be Pastor Jeff again, and he noticed that he had begun to avoid them. They dont understand me anymore, he began to tell himself. For now, Pastor Jeff was going to take care of Pastor Jeff; everyone else would just take from Pastor Jeff. Stage Five: Callousness or Cynicism While Pastor Jeff was going through the motions of work and family, he was making sense of life in a whole new way. Since life was a black and white movie with a theme of duty, anything that introduced color with freedom and excitement was deemed good. Pastor Jeff was torn, knowing that he used to call these things badthe attention from his secretary who seemed to genuinely care, the couple of drinks at night that took the edge off, the impulse purchases that proved his independence. Pastor Jeffs wife and old friends (as he now thought of them) would raise concerns. But this only reinforced his now firmly held cynicism that they were judgmental and didnt care about me. He sank further into isolation. Stage Six: Failure or Crisis

Predictably, Pastor Jeffs work performance fell, he starting having an affair with his secretary, and the drinking grew beyond a couple. Everything started to come to lighthis wife noticed some questionable e-mails with his secretary and started to piece together the truth. With the separation that followed, the affair became public knowledge. Pastor Jeff was fired, living in an apartment with his secretary, and only saw his kids for about an hour a week at McDonalds. Pastor Jeff was shocked and sickened. When he permitted himself to ask, What happened? his emotions fluctuated from intense guilt to cold bitterness, then retreating back into numb callousness. Stage Seven: Realization How could he have gotten here? How could he have been as mean to his wife and friends as he was when his sin came to light? How could his conscience have missed that he was slipping into such dangerous patterns? While he was still a pastor, he had taught on the dangers of everything he had done. Why was he just now starting to care again? Now caring hurt so bad that he almost didnt want to come out of his cynical stupor, and when Pastor Jeff talked to any of his old friends he found himself quickly getting defensive and retreating within his calloused conscience.