Balancing Expectations

Listening to Both Church Leaders and Parents by Gillian Marchenko

It is Sunday morning. I’m running late. “Come on, Polly. It’s time for church. Let’s get going.” I bend down and help my 5-year-old daughter, one of two kids in our family who happen to have Down syndrome, into her winter coat. We skip the hat. There’s no need. Our commute is only the size of a parking lot.

My husband, Sergei, is the pastor of our small Evangelical Free Church on the north side of Chicago. I hurry my other children out the door. I still have 15 minutes to get the kids to class and check in with the Sunday school teachers. Besides my role as mom and pastor’s wife, I am also the children’s ministry coordinator.

There is tension in my roles. I struggle to staff our growing ministry. My children are the only kids in attendance with disabilities. To date, any special-needs ministry at church has been organic and minimal at best.

I should have a meeting with myself about how to support our family. The mom would ask: “Have you had a chance to look at curriculum geared toward children with sensory issues? What’s being done to include my children on Sunday morning?”

Then the church worker would gently respond, patting my leg: “Mrs. Marchenko, there are 20 children at church. We love your daughters. We are doing our best to serve all the kids who walk through the door.”

Expectations and dreams

My heartbeat for my daughters is inclusion, and my vision is broad. I do not want their hands held without the hearts being touched. I do not want them appeased or put to the side for efficiency or appearance. I want them valued. I want them serving and being served. I dream for them to be productive members of the body of Christ. In essence, I want them treated like everyone should be treated at church.

Some families come to church leadership with a what have you done for me lately attitude. I get it. As a parent of children with special needs, I, too, have been rewired to advocate. I keep my boxing gloves close by. I am ready to speak up at school or in medical situations. My gloves go with me to church because, surely, no one else will care for my children as much as I do.

But it is unbiblical to come to church ready to box. I am not fighting the church for my children; I am called as a Christian to fight with the church to ensure that everyone’s needs are met in Christ. Jesus cares for my children abundantly more than I do.

A healthy ministry begins when parents and workers share realistic expectations. As a mother, my primary expectation is that God landed us in a church that will love and nurture our kids. As a children’s-ministry coordinator, I work toward better curriculum, a teen buddy system and a general, unifying spirit of inclusion. Inclusion in the body of Christ should be easier than inclusion in general. But the only way to come close to any of that is with a balanced perspective and lots of prayer and grace.

I drop my two daughters off in their classroom. After a quick kiss and a hug, I breathe a prayer that not only my daughters but also everyone who walks through our doors will feel welcomed and included—on this hurried Sunday morning, and every Sunday that follows.

Gillian Marchenko and her husband, Sergei, have been at Christian Fellowship EFC in Chicago for four years. They also have served as church planters with ReachGlobal in Kiev, Ukraine. God ushered Gillian into the world of special needs through the birth of her third daughter, Polly. Two years ago, Sergei and Gillian adopted Evangeline, who also has Down syndrome, from Ukraine. Read more from Gillian at her blog.