What Is My Niche?

What's my thing...my niche here? What can I do to help? How can I fit in? These could be a few questions you may have in the church that you and your family are planting. Here you are in your newly established church and everyone seems to have a place or job and you may be wondering what you can do to be a part of this extraordinary thing. I know that I wondered this and asked myself these same questions.

Everyone wants to feel apart of something whether it is big or small. They want to feel as if they had a hand in making something better and to feel as if they have contributed somehow. Sometimes though it seems like everyone has been assigned a job and you are just standing there kind of feeling useless. You may also think that being the age you are that there is nothing of importance that you can do. Well, stop that thinking right now! There are numerous things that you can do to be apart of the church you are building.

The obvious choices of working in the church are playing an instrument and teaching. I don't know how to play an instrument. I can sing a little but until recently, I've never been able to work in the music area of my church. I had always felt like I wasn't really doing anything in the church because I wasn't this great musician. Now, if you do play an instrument or are learning to play the piano, guitar, and drums or taking voice lessons, then great! You have already found your niche at your church. But for the rest of us that God didn't bless with musical abilities, I have discovered that there are many many areas of the church that we can work in. If your church is like mine, we are always looking for good dedicated teachers. If you love teaching and helping others to learn than this could be the area for you. You can start by helping out in the nursery or see if you can help out in the primary church. I've learned that nurseries in churches are always looking for helpful and responsible people to work in the nurseries and help teach the little babies the stories in the Bible.

But you may be thinking to yourself that you can't play an instrument and you can't or don't like teaching. Well, there are plenty of other areas that you can help out in. Some of them may be behind the scenes and may not get as much attention as the musicians or teachers but they are just as important. What I would suggest doing is to figure out what you like to do.

Do you enjoy taking pictures with your camera or taking video of everything going on around you? You can use this as becoming the historian of your church. Everyone likes to keep a record of everything that goes on in the church and to help out with that you could start becoming the photographer or videographer. If your church already has a photographer than see if you can be his/her assistant. Learn from them. Ask them to teach you the art of photography.

Do you enjoy writing? See if maybe you can help out with writing the VBS program at your church or even start writing stories that can be used in Sunday School. You may even want to write a skit or play that can be used for different events going on in church such as Mother's Day, 4th of July, Christmas or Thanksgiving.

Do you enjoy decorating or planning things? Let's face it, no true church or FWB church has a function without eating a meal. Am I right? If you love to decorate or plan events then see if you can be put on the planning committee at your church or ask if you can help whomever is in charge of decorating the church for special events such as Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner or Easter dinner. You will be able to use your imagination and help make a place look beautiful and everyone will enjoy sitting down at the table when they are surrounded by beautiful and festive decorations.

Do you enjoy cleaning? Believe it or not, there are some people who enjoy cleaning. This is also an area that, to me, is just as important as teachers or musicians. If your church is not clean very well or has an odor to the air than visitors will not come back and the spirit may not be there because everyone is more focused on the smell and untidiness of the church.Most churches starting out can't afford a cleaning service or janitor to clean the church so they have volunteers. One of my past churches had a schedule and a different family would clean the church for a month. If you enjoy cleaning, see if you can be put into that schedule or see if you can help the one that is cleaning the church already.

Do you love to read books or watch movies? You can definitely build something on this. Try putting together a ministry with the other teens where you meet each month and talk about a certain book or movie. You can talk about the subject matter of the book and what the Bible has to say about it and how it pertains to your life. There are many books out there that have discussion questions in the back. You may have to get your pastor's (father's)permission first on the book and movie selection.

My point to this is that there are plenty of jobs that you can do to feel like you have helped in some way. All you need to do is think about what you love to do and see how you can incorporate that into your church. Pray and ask the Lord to show you what you can do to be more involved. Talk to your pastor or in most of your cases, your dad, and brainstorm ideas and see what you can come up with about how you can be more involved in the church. Use your imagination. You can do so many wonderful things in your church and in turn this helps you feel more connected and you will know that you played a vital part in not only growing more close to the Lord but also winning more souls for Christ.