Family By the Bible(TM)
Creating, Leading, and Managing High-performance Families
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
Family By the Bible™
Preview Text (revised 1-29-24 by author)
Wedding is for a day, but marriage is for life! Most couples start out thinking that their marriage will be as romantic and exciting as their courtship. They quickly realize that marriage is a continuous improvement journey, not a duplication of the courtship period! I thought myself, almost 50 years ago, that marriage will be romantic, holding hands, running around in parks, singing songs! After a few months, Chaya (my wife) had a high-risk pregnancy. On December 18, 1975, at 7:30 pm, doctors and nurses monitoring her, scared me stiff, when they asked me to sign consent papers in case something seriously went wrong. That may be routine for them ask, but for me, a student 10,000 miles away from family support, it was serious. Suddenly, I realized the seriousness of responsibilities and deep emotional anxieties, contrary to the bed of roses I had imagined. My main concern was the safety of Chaya and the baby, and my commitment to them both, no matter what. After most-pleading, mercy-seeking intercessions, we felt most grateful to God who blessed us with our first child, John, at 3:48 AM the next morning of December 19, 1975 –an advance Christmas gift, indeed!
Many surveys indicate that the number one problem in marriages is the lack of serious commitment. Many marry with “car-leasing mindset”! Sadly, today, couples can do a “no-fault” divorce, with no questions asked! That’s a travesty to the meaning of commitment to marriage! How, then, can we expect stable emotional relationships at home, at workplace, or for that matter, even in worship places! Today, parents and children are in so much despair, despondency, anger, and resentment – ready to explode any time anywhere. Is it a surprise, then, to see the school shootings since 1959 in the US, the rate of which is increasing at an alarming rate to the present time? On March 27, 2023, a former student in a Nashville school killed 6 people—three of them children, just 9 years old! On January 4, 2024, a 17-year-old fatally shot a sixth-grade student and wounded five other people in an Iowa school! Are parents losing control of their children?
Strong families make strong communities, Strong communities make strong countries. And strong countries make strong societies! The need for strong and stable families is never greater when the global competition is on a “flat” playing field. I think, stable families should be considered an important strategic variable to build the core competencies of a country for economic competitiveness......
What’s Needed Today to Build and/or Rebuild Our Families?
Re-working a product not up to specifications is a more difficult and costly process. But it’s better to fix it later than never, as we don’t know who’ll use that product! Of course, a family is much more a critical system than a product. But the analogy is relevant. Genichi Taguchi, a Japanese quality expert, developed the concept of “Quality Loss Function.” It basically says that every defective product creates a loss to the society. He proposed statistical approaches to minimize this loss. If we extrapolate his concept to families, we can glean some interesting insights. For example, what if we say, every family must strive to minimize the total social cost (or loss) to the world by designing, developing, and managing its spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial aspects? When we buy a product or service, we expect the most value. So, when we buy and/or build a house in a particular neighborhood, should we not expect the best value from the family units of that neighborhood since they affect our own family and vice-versa?
When we build a new family, it’s easier than when we rebuild it after it’s become dysfunctional. No one starts out by saying, “we can tolerate a drug-addict child in our family,” any more than a company saying, “we can tolerate a defective product.” So, the important question is: “Can we actually design, develop and maintain family units that minimize the social cost to our world?” I believe, we can, and we must. Furthermore, we can create and sustain “High-Performance Families” (HPFs) by doing the following, which are addressed in detail, in this book.
1. Follow the “Family Design Manual” daily.
2. Build or rebuild families for Significance, not merely for Success.
3. Recognize constantly, the societal impact of your Family!
4. Shape your family as a System, not as a Component.
5. Take Responsibility for your family, collectively, as a community.
6. Celebrate your family’s Achievements consistently.
7. Learn and apply diligently, the art and science of Family Management.
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About the Book
Some unique contributions of Family By the Bible™ are:
1. Instead of the traditional, hit-and-miss success of self-help Christian and secular books on managing families, this book offers a more-sure, proven approaches to creating and sustaining successful and strong families, because it draws on the infinite wisdom of God through His Scripture –the Bible.
2. Practical and proven tools and methods of the Bible are presented here to help make American families grow strong again. This is true for families all around the world as well. Strong families create strong communities, and strong communities create strong countries. And strong countries make happy and joyful societies in the world.
3. Joyful societies (as those pre-1950s) create more wholesome families, with better civility, and decency among the citizens, more peaceful pursuits for the common good, more harmony, less social costs, better emotional and relational health, and ultimately, to lesser existential threats to the 8 billion of us and our wonderful earth.
4. Elon Musk, the genius founder of Tesla Electric Car Company, and Space X company, is hoping that by relocating us to other planets like Mars, we will create more ideal societies. I humbly disagree with his notion. If anything, we, the corrupt humans, will carry forth our self-destructive thinking from the earth to the other planets, and replicate our same bad behaviors there as well! A more practical solution is to teach and train our families to learn the pre-1950s values and enjoy our lives here first! This book presents such tools.
5. If every family practices at least some of this book’s principles, we’ll have regained more pre-1950s values, and we can slash budgets for welfare, social costs, disease control, mental health, and illogical thinking which have been destroying all our fundamental institutions: religious, educational, legal, economical, and humanitarian.
About the Author
Dr. David J. Sumanth is the internationally recognized Doctor Productivity ™, author, editor, and professor emeritus at the University of Miami (the U). David’s honors include Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, George Washington Honor Medal for Economic Education, Fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science, Iron Arrow (the highest honor at the U), Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, and Marquis’ Distinguished Humanitarian Award. David served as the founding Chief Judge of Florida Sterling Award for Quality.
David’s insights here are drawn from his 50+ years of university teaching, research, consulting, public speaking, and face-to-face interactions with CEOs, presidents and prime ministers, church leaders, and families in 100+ countries. His public speaking talent, award-winning teaching, caring passion for people, and his “tough love,” have made him a “Humanity-builder™.” His unique approach with people has transcended different cultures, resulting in “zero-failure™ people” in companies, governments, classrooms, and churches.
David has been a Licensed Minister for 19 years at Christ Journey Church, USA; Honorary Exec. Pastor for 17 years in India; and a Bible Study Teacher for 63 years. David and Chaya, his “bride” of 49 years, have two sons –Dr. John J. Sumanth, Associate Professor at Wake Forest University, married to Jaya, with daughters Miah and Anna; and Paul, care of Heaven since his 20th year. David and Chaya founded the Paul J. Sumanth Ministries, Inc. in memory of Paul (www.pjsm.org) in 2001 to educate destitute children in India. In 22 years, this ministry, by God’s grace, has graduated 20,000+ children from 10th grade. Many have earned engineering and MBA degrees. David has trained 5,000+ pastors and church leaders in USA, India, Colombia, and Honduras.