http://www.abpnews.com/ministry/organiz ... CcmkaO3PyIABP's and Baptist Today's take on the departures, with one more added.
I was a member of what is arguably one of Texas' most visible, inner-circle CBF congregations for something like 13 years. I do not recall there ever being mention made of the state CBF organization. Even though the church eventually severed its ties to the SBC, though it still had a number of members who contributed to the CP, the BGCT was the overwhelming influence and denominational connection of the church, even before it left the SBC. The national CBF got some attention, the state organization wasn't on the radar screen.
More and more, in spite of the lack of mention of it, this looks like a reaction to shrinking budget giving and the coming shift of emphasis and direction when Vestal steps down. The people who are leaving are in a position to observe where the budget receipts are coming from, and would have intimate knowledge of why they are dropping. They know the numbers, the churches, and the trends.
I shared Timothy's view, back when I first became involved with CBF, that it should break away from the SBC entirely and encourage as many churches as it could to get off the fence and follow along. Dual affiliation hasn't worked to their advantage. Many of the churches that originally supported both groups stopped their CBF giving when there was a pastor change. Several state conventions have forced churches to make a choice by disfellowshipping congregations that support both groups, and most of those churches drop their CBF support when that happens. It might be a smaller organization, perhaps as many as 600 or 700 churches altogether, but it wouldn't have stretched its resources too far. The other thing they should have done was a more deliberate, and better funded effort at church planting. The more churches it creates on its own that haven't been SBC affiliated, the better off it will be.