He still talks about that Sunday.
Not because anything dramatic happened. No crisis, no conflict, no moment anyone in the congregation would have noticed from the outside. But he walked out of that building feeling like a stranger in his own calling.
The week before had been different. The kind of Sunday a pastor holds onto—the room was alive, people lingered, and conversations ran long. He drove home full. Grateful. Settled.
Seven days later he stood in the same pulpit and felt almost nothing. The words came out fine. The service ran on time. But something was missing, and he couldn’t name it. A couple slipped out early. An older gentleman in the third row nodded off somewhere around the second point. His wife asked how he thought it went on the drive home.
He told her he wasn’t sure why he kept doing this.
She didn’t say anything. Just looked out the window.
That gap — from full to empty in a single week, from alive to just going through the motions — used to confuse him. He thought it was spiritual. A dry season. Maybe God is teaching him something about humility.
But it wasn’t a spiritual problem. It was an attachment problem.
If you’re a Vacillator, you already know exactly what he means.
What Is a Vacillator?
In Milan and Kay Yerkovich’s framework from “How We Love,” the vacillator grew up in a home where connection was inconsistent. Sometimes a parent was warm and engaged. Other times they were distant, distracted, or emotionally unavailable — and the child never knew which version was walking through the door.
So the vacillator learned to crave connection intensely, because connection felt rare and precious. And when it didn’t show up—or when it didn’t last—the disappointment hit hard. Over time, that pattern gets baked in: idealize, connect, get disappointed, pull back, repeat.
It’s not drama for drama’s sake. It’s a nervous system that never learned that connection was safe and consistent.
How He Leads Himself
The Vacillator pastor runs on emotional fuel. When he’s inspired, he’s really inspired. He can pray for two hours, outline a sermon series in one sitting, and text his team at midnight with ideas because he can’t sleep. That energy is real. That passion is real.
But here’s what’s also real: when the inspiration dries up, so does he. The same man who was unstoppable last week can’t get out of his study chair this week. He finds himself questioning his calling, wondering if he ever had anything to offer, and scrolling through other churches’ Instagram accounts, comparing his worst to their highlight reels.
He doesn’t have a spirituality problem. He has a regulation problem. His emotional intensity drives him in both directions — and he often mistakes the highs for spiritual depth and the lows for spiritual failure. Neither is accurate.
How He Leads His Family
His wife and kids experience him in seasons. There are weeks where he’s the most present, engaged, and fun dad in the world—planning family outings, laughing at dinner, and being fully there. And then something shifts. Maybe a conflict at the church, maybe a sermon that didn’t land, maybe just the slow accumulation of unmet expectations. And he withdraws.
He doesn’t mean to go cold. But the people he loves most feel the temperature drop—and they’ve learned to read his moods like a weather forecast. His wife has stopped sharing certain things with him because she never knows which version of him will respond. His kids have learned to be careful around Dad when he seems “off.”
He craves deep connection with his family. Genuinely. But when he feels hurt or overlooked or misunderstood, he pulls back — and that withdrawal creates the very distance he hates. It’s a painful cycle, and the people in his home feel it most.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” — Proverbs 13:12
The Vacillator’s whole interior life is Proverbs 13:12 on repeat. He hopes intensely. He’s disappointed deeply. And over time, that sickness of hope deferred can harden into cynicism — or worse, into giving up on connection altogether.
How He Leads His Church
In the pulpit, the Vacillator pastor is magnetic. His emotional authenticity connects with people. When he’s up, the whole room is up. His vision is compelling, his enthusiasm contagious. People leave Sunday feeling like something is happening, like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
And they are. Until he crashes.
The team starts to learn—don’t bring a new idea to Pastor when he seems distant. Don’t push back on a decision when he’s in a low cycle. Wait for the high. Catch him when he’s inspired. And that means the church is being led not by wisdom and prayer but by his emotional weather patterns.
Talented people leave. Not with a bang, but quietly. They’ll say it’s a season change, or they feel called elsewhere. What they won’t say is, “I couldn’t keep up with the highs and lows.” I never knew where I stood. I loved the vision, but I couldn’t live in the volatility.
What This Is Costing Him
Long-term, the Vacillator pays a steep price. His family pulls away—not because they don’t love him, but because self-protection is a reasonable response to inconsistency. His team learns to manage him instead of collaborate with him. And he ends up lonelier than ever, surrounded by people but never fully known by anyone.
He also tends to burn out in ministry cycles. Big launch. Huge energy. Disappointing results. Crash. Rebuild. Repeat. Each cycle takes a little more out of him than the last.
And underneath all of it is the original wound: I don’t know if connection will be there when I need it. So he either chases it desperately or shuts it down preemptively. Neither posture leads to the deep, lasting relationships he’s made to have.
“I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content.” — Philippians 4:11
Paul wrote that from prison. Not from a mountain high. Contentment—the kind that holds steady whether the sermon lands or falls flat, whether the elder meeting went well or sideways—that’s learned. It’s not a personality trait. It’s a practice. And for the Vacillator, it might be the most transformative spiritual work he ever does.
Does This Sound Like You?
Take a minute with these questions. Not to analyze yourself into a corner — just to notice.
Do you find that your motivation and energy in ministry come in waves that you can’t fully predict or control? When someone disappoints you—an elder, a staff member, your wife—do you tend to either confront intensely or withdraw completely? Does your family seem to walk on eggshells around your moods, even when nothing big has happened?
Do you sometimes find yourself pouring everything into a vision or a person and then feeling profoundly let down when they don’t match your expectation? Do you secretly wonder if the emotional intensity you feel is what makes you a good pastor—and worry that if you “calm down,” you’ll lose your edge?
That last one is worth sitting with. Because emotional intensity and emotional health are not the same thing. You can have one without the other. And the goal isn’t to flatten out — it’s to build a stable enough foundation that your highs don’t require crashes to balance them.
A Word Before You Go
I’m not writing this to label you or put you in a box. I’m writing this because I’ve sat with enough pastors—and spent enough time in my own wreckage—to know that this pattern is quiet, believable, and incredibly painful. The Vacillator often looks like a passionate leader from the outside. Inside, he’s exhausted and lonely.
You don’t have to keep running this cycle. The craving for connection that drives the vacillator isn’t a flaw—it’s a God-given longing that got rerouted by early pain. It can be rerouted again, toward something steadier and more life-giving.
That work is possible. I’ve watched it happen. I’ve lived some of it myself.
Ready to Go Deeper?
If you recognized yourself in this post, you’re not alone—and you don’t have to stay stuck. I work with pastors one-on-one to help them understand their attachment patterns, heal what’s beneath the surface, and lead from a place of wholeness instead of wounds.
Schedule a Free 15-Minute Call
You don’t have to figure this out alone. That’s what I’m here for.
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