What we heard at the Africa Roundtable

In February, our MFN team hosted the Africa Roundtable on the Theology of Generosity and Fundraising in Limuru, Kenya (February 2-6, 2026). In this post, we will share some of what we heard.

Ours wasn’t a ministry gathering where foreign experts flew in to teach Africans how to do generosity, fundraising and accountability ‘properly’. This was an event where African theologians, mission leaders and fundraisers taught and shared about generosity, stewardship, and what it means to invest in a mission that lasts across generations.

More than 60 leaders, ministry founders, theologians, mission mobilisers, and fundraisers from Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Burkina Faso, Angola, Chad and beyond, gathered to share what God is already doing through African churches.

MFN had the privilege of hosting this event, but we intentionally stepped back and let African voices lead, shape, and direct every conversation.

African communities and churches are joyfully and sacrificially generous.

Before we dive into the theology (and it was rich!), let’s start with data that should make every one of us pause and reconsider any assumptions we might have about African Christianity and generosity:

• 91% of African households gave to individuals or institutions in the past year. (Trust Africa, 2024)

• 22-31% of monthly income goes to church and community giving in East Africa.

• 2,500+ missionaries are sent out to unreached people groups by just one Nigerian organisation (ECWA), and they are supported through local funding.

• Over 80% of non-denominational mission agencies in Nigeria source their funding locally.

• Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana rank among the world’s top 20 most generous nations (CAF World Giving Index, 2024).

Five valuable insights from the Africa Roundtable

1  An economy exists to make provision for the future. Professor Nimi Wariboko from the University of Boston opened the roundtable with this simple but profound statement, then walked us through Deuteronomy 28 and Mark 6 to show us something we’d somehow missed: biblical generosity isn’t about lurching from miracle to miracle. It’s about patient, disciplined, generational stewardship that builds assets, creates surplus, and leaves an inheritance.

He put it so memorably: Manna from heaven was never meant to be an economy.

2.  Mission happens across time, not only across geography. Mission is not only from Africa to the nations – Wariboko continued. It is also from this generation to the next. This reframing stopped us in our tracks. We’re so focused on sending missionaries across borders that we’ve neglected the equally important work of passing on missional capacity to our children’s children.

Proverbs 13:22—A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children— is not just about passing on wealth to our children. It’s about ensuring the Church can continue Christ’s mission long after us and today’s leaders are gone.

3. What do you have in your house? – Revd Dr Barnabe Anzuruni from Tearfund brought us back to Elisha’s question to the widow in 2. Kings 4. Not asking: What do you need? Not asking: Who will rescue you? But asking: What has God already placed in your hands?

This question sits at the heart of Tearfund’s community mobilisation work across Africa. As Anzuruni explained, Poverty is not only about resources. It is often about lost confidence and lost imagination. When churches and communities start by identifying what they already have, skills, relationships, time, land, trust, and creativity, transformation begins from within, not from outside.

The widow only had a jar of oil. But thanks to her obedience and the community’s participation, it was enough for God to multiply.

4. Assets give ministries breathing space to discern God’s direction. Canon Revd Dr Moses Bushendich from CMS Africa spoke with refreshing honesty about a tension many Christian leaders feel: does planning, saving, or building assets somehow contradict trust in God?

His answer was clear: I don’t believe faith and stewardship are enemies. I believe they belong together.

He shared how CMS Africa developed an income-generating property whose rental income now supports missionary work, independent of donor cycles and currency swings. Assets give leaders freedom to discern God’s direction rather than react to whoever offers funding. They create stability that allows you to say no to partnerships that don’t align with your calling.

This was theology translated into bricks, policies, and long-term sustainability.

5. If you remove women’s generosity, the ministry stops. Revd Ann Wangombe’s contribution was both gentle and piercing. From the women who supported Jesus out of their own means in Luke 8, to Lydia opening her home for the early church, to the Shunammite woman building a room for Elisha, women have always helped to sustain God’s work.

She shared story after story from her own church: women who’ve served in Vacation Bible School for 20 years, women who pool resources to visit the sick and bereaved, women who fundraised to buy all the seats for their church building, women who paid hospital bills for mothers detained for nonpayment.

If you remove women’s generosity from the African churches, she said, much of our ministry would stop functioning.

Any theology of generosity that sidelines women, the Roundtable participants agreed, is both unjust and incomplete.

Stories that moved us to tears

Beyond the theology and statistics, we heard stories that will stay with us for years:

• Churches in Nigeria that have sent and are supporting over 2,500 missionaries to unreached people groups, pooling resources month after month.

• A congregation of farmers who built a maternity ward in a local village after watching too many women die in childbirth because the nearest hospital was hours away.

• Women’s revolving loan funds have lifted hundreds of families out of poverty.

These aren’t stories of one-off compassionate acts. They show sustainable patterns of generosity woven into the fabric of the African church life. This is what African Christianity looks like when you actually pay attention.

The uncomfortable truth about accountability 

The Africa Roundtable didn’t shy away from difficult conversations. Leaders like Pauline Kamau from AfCAA spoke candidly about the damage caused by weak governance, founder-centred structures without succession planning, and manipulative fundraising practices that exploit people’s faith.

The participants expressed a desire and a commitment to promote and strengthen accountability in their settings because accountability isn’t a Western imposition or bureaucratic burden. It’s biblical discipleship and practical obedience.

Where trust is broken, generosity dries up. Where integrity is practised consistently, generosity multiplies across networks and generations.

Generous Generations: Africa’s gift to the world

One of the most exciting outcomes was seeing how the Roundtable’s emphasis on intergenerational stewardship is already being applied. Cherise Vermeulen, founder of Generous Generations, shared how her ministry is creating Generosity Discipleship Experiences for children, youth, and young adults worldwide.

Her question connected everything: Why do we wait until adulthood to instil the life-changing values of generosity?

If the mission of God extends across time to future generations, then discipling children in biblical generosity while their hearts are still being formed isn’t optional; it’s strategic obedience.

Take a look at their fabulous resources and use them in your church or ministry – https://generousgenerations.org/

Where do we go from here?

The papers presented at the Africa Roundtable will be published in the coming weeks, and videos of the plenary sessions will be shared so the learnings and insights gleaned can reach ministry leaders, theological educators, and practitioners across Africa and worldwide.

Even more importantly, an MFN Africa Learning Hub is being launched to continue the conversations, develop authentic African generosity resources, and local training for leaders wrestling with generosity, fundraising and accountability questions in their own contexts.

If you’re interested in joining our MFN Africa learning community or accessing resources as they become available, please let us know.

From What do you have in your house? to What will you leave behind?— this is the journey African Christian leaders are inviting the global Church to walk with them.

Not as learners catching up, but as teachers leading the way forward in faithful, sacrificial, joyful generosity.

We’re honoured to have witnessed what happened in Limuru, and we can’t wait to share more as the papers and videos become available.

Redina Kolaneci  & Michael Wamache, Catalysts for Ministry Fundraising, The Lausanne Movement