Speaking of CBF William Thornton writes "My guess is that if the next round of cuts is in their core ministry, the roughly 50% of the budget that does to global missions, then churches will start asking if this thing is really going to work long term." And William that will depend a lot on how we define "this thing". One of the original reasons for developing partner relationships was to allow for flexibility to ajust the definition on the fly.
I will admit that when we where still in SBC churches, either SBC/CBF or CBF/SBC we gave more to CBF than do since Trudy became an ABC-USA pastor. Before joining an ABC church we split our tithe between the local churches where we attended and if they allowed designate the remainder to CBF. If the did not allow designated giving we contributed to their local expenses and sent the remainder to CBF directly as well as contributing to our region. From the time we joined an ABC church we have given the tithe to the churches where we have held membership and the bulk of any offerings have gone to CBF through the region and directly to CBF primarily in the form of offerings at the General assemblies. From discussions that I have had with several people in CBF only or CBF/SBC churches the bulk of their regular giving goes their local church and state CBF, their offering go to the Offerings at the assemblies. As Leonard says "Being Baptist is messy". I find being more than one type of baptist is even more messy .
But so far it is fun. For example we feel a bit guilty going to Tampa for CBF rather than to Puerto Rico for the ABC-USA biennial. Initially we had hoped to get to most of each meeting, but with the increase in air fare and the rise in gas prices, to do both seems to be out of the question. So we are only going to the CBF assembly It will give us a chance to visit with the two boys and Trudy's brother who is in extremely poor health, all three are in Florida.