This article analyzes the theoretical foundations of the Use Your Talents (UYT) approach in contributing
to the development of Lutheran churches in Africa. Indeed, this approach originated within the
framework of the implementation of an organizational development project within the Lutheran Church
of Madagascar, funded by the Norwegian Mission Society (NMS). This experimental project emerged
in a context of crisis in diaconal service and the failure of the top-down approach in the missionary
approach to development in these churches. By following in 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 epistemology
of social sciences, indigenous knowledge, and development studies by establishing elective affinities
between 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 to
a paradigm shift in the missionary approach to development within African Lutheran Churches and a
local, community-based approach to economic development.
