Use Your Talents

For Sunday Schools

Directorate of Christian Education, N’Gaoundéré 2023

By Ngah Joseph in

collaboration with Mboudga Bernatte, Ounsoubo Amos, Bassane Jean

Christophe

Title: Use Your Talents – For Sunday Schools

Author: Joseph Ngah Publisher: Digni, Arbins gate 11, 0253 Oslo Norway – www.digni.no

Facilitated by: NMS – Use Your Talents Institutional Development Project Design: The KIT – Ivar Oftedal and Kjell Inge Torgersen and NMS – Anette Thingbø Sundnes

Completition date: 11 May 2023

ISBN: 978-82-93052-14-2

The complete text could be copied and distributed without a permission from the publisher, if it is referred to this information.

Introduction

There are clandestine waves of people that cross the ocean to reach Europe; according to them, there is nothing to do in Africa. Some play the lottery in order to migrate to the USA, looking for their Eldorado. Others are convinced that poverty and misery are all over Africa. Indeed, in our communities and villages, many are convinced that apart from working in the public service or government institutions and the military, there is nothing else to do. African states prefer to hire labour from abroad instead of training and equipping the nationals. That is the mentality that most Africans have till today. However, Africa is endowed with huge material and human resources that just need to be identified and exploited in order to be developed. This manual aims at shaking-off this mentality of being dependent. We believe we should start teaching the children early enough to use what they have here and now for their personal development. In addition to Sunday school programs; this booklet can also be used for Bible studies in the congregation as well as for youth meetings.

The preamble of the Church Constitution states: “EELC aims at bringing the salvation of God to man entirely: spirit, soul and body”. This preamble is inspired from the Bible that doesn’t only take care of the things related to the soul, such as reconciliation, salvation, life after death, but also the wellbeing of our body and our material development in this world. After giving a spiritual education to children and fundamental doctrines to church members, the Church should give advice on personal development skills that will be beneficial to them and the community as a whole. Some of the Biblical characters that we chose as point of interest have certainly been studied in other Sunday school books.

If we make mention of them again in this book, it is to highlight the talents they received in order to help their community. In this book, we focalise on the talents of the characters that we chose.

“Use your talents” is the title of a collective work edited by Sigurd Haus and published by Digni (Norway).

“Use your talents” is inspired by the parable of the talents told by Jesus. Actually, the message behind this parable was developed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Madagascar and answers two major questions: What can we do with what we have here and now? How can the congregation be the main actor in developing the community? The Church in Madagascar uses this approach to develop itself, to develop Christians and the community.

In the Greek-Roman world, talent was the value of an amount worth 26 kg. of gold.1 That is what transpires from the parable told by Jesus. Talent can be defined as an aptitude, a capability, a natural or acquired ability.

Through the biblical stories that we have chosen, we aim to attain the following objectives:

Help children/youth to detect their talent (ability, knowledge, relations, possessions, plots of land, house, money…) and get them to valorise these talents;

 Help children/youth to grow-up with the idea that they first of all need to rely on what they own or have in order to develop and stimulate the desire to work together for their personal development and that of the community;

 Develop the approach of African solidarity and extend it to a larger dimension;

 Develop the intellectual, physical, and spiritual life of the children/youth according to the vision of the Church expressed in the preamble of the Church Constitution mentioned above.