Analysis of the Theoretical Foundations of The Use Your Talents Approach in Contributing to The Development of African Churches

This article analyzes the theoretical foundations of the Use Your Talents (UYT) approach in contributingto the development of Lutheran churches in Africa. Indeed, this approach originated within theframework of the implementation of an organizational development project within the Lutheran Churchof Madagascar, funded by the Norwegian Mission Society (NMS). This experimental project emergedin a context of crisis in diaconal service and the failure of the top-down approach in the missionaryapproach to development in these churches. Following the footsteps of the indigenous methodology,which is inspired by collaborative approaches to decolonizing research in indigenous settings (Smith,1999;Drawing on Kovach (2009) and documentary analysis, this article enriches the epistemologyof social sciences, indigenous knowledge, and development studies by establishing elective affinitiesbetween the Use Your Talents (UYT) approach and decolonial theory. The Use Your Talents concept,as operationalized in the Lutheran Churches of Madagascar, Ethiopia, and Cameroon, contributes toa paradigm shift in the missionary approach to development within African Lutheran Churches and alocal, community-based approach to economic development.