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If God Had a Blog…Finding Your Niche

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You’ve all read the bible, right? Our Father isn’t exactly the type to narrow down His focus. Thank goodness for that! He likes people, animals, plant life, water, scenery, complicated formulas and He is all about mystery.

And we are made in His image.

I often hear about how we should hone our blog focus or pick a niche. For a girl like me who has 11 new interests each year that can be a bit complicated. How do I narrow myself down?

Then it dawned on me. We don’t need to narrow down our blog topics. We simply need to develop a honed perspective.

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.
Mathew 22:36-38

God narrowed down the entire contents of the law to one perspective through which everything else can be filtered through. It isn’t a subject, topic, or niche. It is a perspective.

For most of us, in finding our blog’s purpose, we have discovered that our purpose doesn’t necessarily fit into a niche. Instead it encompasses much of our life experiences and things we are learning. These are called transformation blogs and it is important for us to allow them to transform.

In fact, even if your blog does fit into a specific niche it is important to allow it a bit of transformation room. Times change, we change, and our blog should follow suit. The one thing that doesn’t change is His Word so we must keep Jesus Christ as the foundation of our blog. Yes, even if our posts aren’t directly referencing Him.

We simply keep Him as the foundation to have faith that as we transform (thus our blog) that we are in line with His will.

In the past, I know that I have felt compelled to post this content or that content because I felt it was expected of me. I also put pressure on myself to follow through with things my flesh had promised my readers but that my spirit told me to humble myself and back out of. On more than one occasion I have felt the need to apologize for my absence from blogging. This is one instance when it is key to remember just who’s glory we are blogging for: ourselves or Him?

And there is nothing wrong with niche blogs. I LOVE them. I am simply not someone who can maintain one. I would be completely bored by day three. Some of us were designed that way. Look at our own Ms. Sarah Mae. You can’t put her in a box. Try to tell her to focus on one thing. Yet, she is wildly successful. If we keep Him as our focus and let Him give us our perspective then we can’t help but bloom.

God didn’t create us all out of molds and there is no need for us to try to make our blogs that way either. Blog freely.

On occasion we need to step back and reevaluate. We need to institute changes. We need to allow Him to transform us and let that reflect on our blogs so that we can be a testimony to those in need of witnessing it. We don’t belong to our readers. We won’t answer to our readers on judgment day. We will answer to Him and I don’t want to miss the opportunity to be used to help in the transformation of the life of someone else.

If out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks then out of the overflow of the heart the fingers must type. Stay in His word. Remain in prayer. Serve His people. Allow Him to transform you. Let your fingers type a reflection of that change. Depending on your gifts and talents that may make an appearance as a photograph, a recipe, a craft project, or even as a bible study. As long as it is what He has led you to and what you are sharing for His glory then we are doing the right thing.

If God had a blog I know it would be vast and beautiful. The categories would be endless. The one thread that would connect each one would be love.

What’s in your heart?

Amy Bayliss blogs at Cajun Joie de Vivre as well as contributes to Sisters in Bloom.

Comments

  3. Getting a focus on my blog has been on my mind all morning. Then I sat down and read this and it made my heart smile. I think I’m on the right track. Thanks for the affirmation!! 🙂

    •  This made me smile, Christie! I know what you mean about trying to focus a blog. It’s hard to decide on one aspect of what God created for us. Some can do it and are successful. For the rest of us, it may not be the season for it or it may not be what God intended for us.

  7. I can’t tell you, Amy, how much I appreciate your comments.  I just took count of how much I’ve written – 27,000 plus words and yet I haven’t started my blog back up.  It’s been so long, I forget how to operate it.  I was not feeling like I could put myself in a niche.  Thanks for stating the obvious – I don’t have to.

    •  Oh, Ginny. I am so happy to hear that. You don’t have to fit into a niche. Just be the YOU God made you to be. Write from His will for your blog.

  9. LOVE this! Thank you for putting words to my thoughts for the last 18 months. Ironically, I think I am finding my passion this year and feeling I may be finding a ‘niche’ but my heart keeps crying out, “Don’t limit what God may want you to say by being so eager to label this thing we call writing.”

  10. wonderful, wise, encouraging words, Amy!  Thank you for this, what a freeing perspective!  I needed this, I really did. 

  11. Thank you! I have toyed with subdividing my blog, and really felt that I shouldn’t. That’s what tags and categories are for, right? I write a lot about native plants; but when you take a closer look, they glorify God in how they work together in the intricate web of His design.

  12. Thank you! This was so encouraging. As a new blogger, I keep hearing things about finding a narrow niche. I don’t have a niche.  I have varied interests and therfore my blog reflects that. Thank you for telling me it isn’t “wrong”. 🙂

  14. Great post, Amy. I struggled with this up until last year when God impressed upon me that I didn’t have to find a “niche” just blog for Him. 🙂 

  16. You should here the big exhale I just gave. Thanks so much for this post. It was reassuring for someone like me who can be all over the place with my blog.

  18. Amy this is a GREAT post!  I have been struggling with this and have just recently realized much of what you have written here.  Thanks for the reinforcement and encouragement.

  19. Yes and amen. So true. It was extremely and indescribably freeing for me to let go of the “themed” blog…it didn’t work for my personality and passion. While I did have a narrowly themed blog there was SO much tension in me about it. Thank you so much for this encouragement!! 🙂

  20. “develop a honed perspective.” Now that was some stick to the ribs advice!!! I so appreciate this blog. It is hard to not compare mine to to others. For right now He seems to keep saying to me “Not for your glory but Mine, don’t worry about the, keep your eyes on Me!!!Blessings this beautiful Saturday!

  21. I really liked this.  As a non-niche blogger I like the idea of perspective.  I think that is why I started blogging in the first place, because people kept asking me for my perspective of things.  Thank you!

  22. Amy —

    What freedom you’ve offered with this blog post! In working with a wonderful mentor, the one place we’ve gotten stuck is this: my focus. my niche. my one topic. I either panic or begin to snore each time we have the discussion!

    We finally agreed that I’m going to spend a year exploring what I DO write about (not what I should write about) and see what seems to resonate with who (whom?!?)

    Instead of feeling confined, I feel like I’m on a journey of discovery…and transformation!

  23. This post is about freedom…the freedom to go where God leads you in your blog. Thanks, Amy!

  24. Thank you for these words, I’m just 3 posts into blogging and this was such a relief to read.  I love the idea of perspective and transformation over a specific niche, for myself anyway.

  25. Thank you to all of you for the sweet encouragement! I got a couple of emails that asked what my “perspective” for my blog is. You were wanting an example. I figured others might want to know as well so I am posting it here. I will also likely do a follow-up post about this on my blog since I don’t know how long it will be before I have a post here on Allume again.

    My perspective is based on the culture I grew up in. My heritage is predominantly Acadian (Cajun) and our culture is to find the joy in all circumstances. It is what we call Cajun joie de vivre, or “joy of life”. Even in heartache and disaster we come together and find the good things and celebrate good times. My blog is based on that. I don’t enjoy the act of cleaning my home so I find ways to speed up the process of prevent it from getting dirty. That brings me joy so I blog about it. I like to cook. It brings me joy so I blog about it. I enjoy creating things and designing stuff so I blog about that too.

    My perspective, my filter through which all of my posts are sifted through is this: does this bring me joy or will it bring someone else joy in some way? Basically, does it edify life? So that is my perspective and that is what I write about and it lends itself to every topic that I can think to write about. 🙂

  26. I’m so glad to read this too.  I have heard from others that they felt once they narrowed their focus that their readership really went higher.  However, I have many different interests and I do believe they all intermingle around my family life.  I would go crazy and be totally bored if I could only blog about one topic.  Thanks for the affirmation! 

    •  I’ve heard this over and over too, Jen. I think the problem we run into is that for some, more readers is necessary because their goals are to make money advertising. For the rest of us though, we have to consider our goals. Is it to promote a ministry, book, or service? If so, is more readers necessarily what we need or is readers who are more engaged what we need? It really just depends on what your goals are. At times we strive for things just because we think it is how we are supposed to do it. The beauty of blogging is that we can make our own rules. In every instance of success there is only common thread: a passion to reach their goals.

  27. I never worried about finding my “niche”. I just blog about what I love 😉 🙂 Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 🙂

  28. Thank you for this. I have been feeling like my blog is very random.  At times, because of it’s international content, I also feel I do not relate to ‘everyone’. Yet, this is who I am and how I feel God leading me to write.  This helped me so much. I know I still need to work on the focus but it frees me up to just write from my heart.

  29. Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you!!!  I have felt pressured to choose one specific “niche”: homemaking blog, mommy blog, homeschool blog, cooking blog… on and on the choices go, yet I feel like narrowing it down to just one thing really limits what I can do with it.  I’m not really great at any one thing but I love to do/try all kinds of things.  Plus, sometimes I just want to share what God has been teaching me lately, and it may have nothing to do with cooking or homeschooling…  You’re absolutely right when you say that you can talk about almost anything under the sun {SON}, as long as you stay true to your perspective…

  30. “My perspective, my filter through which all of my posts are sifted through is this: does this bring me joy or will it bring someone else joy in some way? Basically, does it edify life?” 
    Amy, you pulled the thought right out of my head and wrote it down – how does that happen??? LOL
    I started blogging just in March, and of course, found several niches…and then followed a friend’s advice and separated those into 3 blogs. I don’t know yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing, so I’m just going with the flow. I write about what interests me, what I love, and sometimes what bothers me. Thanks to all the gals in this Sisters in Bloom for your insight!

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