Access Denied

Every so often I check Oak Haven’s site statistics. I have been interested (when I have had the chance!) in who has been visiting and what they have been doing. For these statistics Statcounter has been my choice for the past two years, but I recently (months ago) employed GoogleAnalytics; some of the drawbacks I found in Statcounter are made up with google’s tracking.

It was a sunny day when I was looking at how visitors got to the church site. For the most part, I noticed most of the referring sites. There was one in particular I wasn’t sure about. So, I was a little eager to see who or what was out there sending people our way. This referring site was a blogger account; that is the same platform used for Oak Haven’s site and this one. Hey, it works! Unfortunately, I was denied access into the site. There are legitimate reasons for blocking readers online. I didn’t apply for a pass to get in the site, but it did get me thinking.

To what extent do we deny “access” to others into church? Most churches talk the good game, but I’ve experienced how the talk is as far as it goes, if that. Of course, I’ve also seen and been a part of the money where the mouth is bunch. How do those characteristics impact the work of a particular local church? What I’m really asking is how good are we in going beyond merely inviting people to go to church by introducing them into the life of the church?

Maybe our Sunday school classes aren’t actually what we say they are and want them to be, or our potlucks aren’t quite the sweet reminder of Christian fellowship. Are our activities really open to everyone, and does our planning reflect that open invitation to, say. parents, working couples and/or those with certain physical needs? A negative impression of any of these ideas (and others) can immediately deter someone from coming back or ever participating….hearing the message of Christ.

I would hate for someone to decide to visit your/my church, and maybe even be a little eager about it, only to be denied access because you/I didn’t give enough thought or attention to how we can eliminate barriers that might reinforce bad assumptions about the church or help to prevent their participation. So, tomorrow I’m going to take a new walk around our church, look at some bulletins and other program pieces and consider some of our regularly scheduled activities to envision how they might be perceived from a newcomer’s perspective. Still being the new guy, I’ve had the chance to do this quite a bit. There are things I’ve been planning to address some of those things I have noticed, but the practice is always useful to continue.


Bring a notepad with you and look at everything; don’t worry if you miss something because you’ll be back doing this again some other time. You might even decide to drop in on other activities in your church to get a feel for some of these things. We’ll have to talk later about what to do with your observations. I surely don’t want you going around criticizing the work of other people without carefully evaluating what is happening. Another thing you can do is consider some of your access denied stories. I can tell you a couple about being rejected and given some of those looks. That’s another post.

Stay blessed…john