Family Manifestos: A Tutoring Guide for All Family Types and Dynamics: Second Edition

By C. Gaffney

Family Manifestos is designed to provide readers a comprehensive understanding of family life and its makeup. It helps in identifying family types, family dynamics, and God's principles. It also points out that every family has its unique distinguishing natural attributes (DNA). Those are attributes are related to a family that no other family possesses. The book also identifies three functional categories-God-centered, functional, and dysfunctional. Each of these styles plays an essential role in the way the families perform. The author wrote this book under the influence of biblical principles. Many of the suggested resolutions are prayer and faith-based. The book was designed to assists most family types, regardless of the family's dynamics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098035273

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Family Manifestos

A Tutoring Guide for All Family Types and Dynamics: Second Edition

C. S. Gaffney

Copyright © 2020 by C.S. Gaffney

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Primary Functions of a Family

Helpful Tips

The Benefit of Apologizing

Sample Weekly Chore Schedule

Time Management

Summary

Volunteer Opportunities for Seniors

Living the Beatitudes in Your Families

Recommended Readings

Family Prayer

Informational References

Foreword

In a day and time when families are living and governing their life from a destructive relativistic viewpoint, it is refreshing and exciting that an anecdote to such ills is being made available in Family Manifesto. Through God’s guidance, author Cecil S. Gaffney methodically addresses the victories we can experience in our families, from the cradle to the grave, when we live our life from God’s absolute found in the Bible. Thank you so much for the thorough research given towards availing information to God’s people to renew and restore value and structure in the family. Much love and prayers in this remarkable endeavor.

Dr. Larry W. Carter, pastor

Good Hope Comm. COGIC

***

The traditional family, God’s first institution, is in serious trouble. The evidence is overwhelming. According to recent census data, more than 50 percent of the children in America’s public schools live in single-parent homes. This is a marked change from 1960 when 73 percent of children fit this description, and 1980 when 61 percent did. These statistics lead me to believe that we face a future of serious needs.

I have had the privilege of serving as a school principal, superintendent, and founder of a very successful charter school. During my 43-year tenure as an educator, I have observed firsthand the devastating effects of broken homes on children’s self-esteem.

Deacon Cecil Gaffney has poured his heart into writing this much-needed book, and I am ecstatic and honored to write this foreword for him. It is amazing to see what God is doing in his life. Gaffney is an experienced therapist and counselor who works with people to explore how their family dynamics have influenced them. He has assisted people in gaining a more in-depth understanding of how they fit within a family structure. He also works with issues, such as loneliness, bereavement, depression, stress, and anxiety. Gaffney is an author, advisor, counselor, friend, and brother, but most important of all, he is a committed servant of the Lord who has been an inspiration in my life.

Deacon Gaffney has been a faithful member of our church for over thirty years. He is a retired air force senior NCO who developed his expertise in family life while advising young airmen and married couples.

Gaffney presently serves as chairman of the trustee board for True Vine Community Church of God in Christ. He is a man that leads by example; a family man that has been married to his lovely wife, Doris, for over 61 years.

Although he has written numerous training manuals and guides, this is the third official book he has authored.

Our paths crossed recently when I married Cecil’s pastor and became the First Lady of True Vine Community COGIC. However, my first real encounter with Gaffney’s effectiveness and knowledge about family life was when I attended one of his annual workshops. At the close of that meeting, I was so impressed with his knowledge, wealth of information, and resources. I discovered hidden in this quiet, gentle man multifaceted skills. Down through the years, Cecil has continued to help many people through his workshops on various aspect of family life.

As a result of growing up in a generation where divorce has grown by epic proportions, and broken families are the norm, I believe that many young parents have swung to the opposite direction and engineered a life that is all about the family. They seem to want what they didn’t have. While their intentions might be good, I believe it is more important to establish balanced relationships within our families. The family is about so much more than sporting events and family game nights! God instituted families for a specific purpose.

I highly recommend this compelling and insightful book, Family Manifesto, which is so needed because it provides answers to many questions which families face on a daily basis. It uses biblical principles to address two essential elements of family—marriage and parenthood. I especially recommend the chapter about the love between a husband and wife because it provides a glimpse of Christ’s passionate devotion to us as His bride. In the same way, the ups and downs of parenthood offer a compelling picture of God’s tenderness and patience toward us as His children.

This book is a must read for successful families. It can transform lives. Each chapter packed with valuable information that will help families to grow stronger. Healthy families are essential because, without stable families, the church and society will be weak. When the families are healthy, then Christ can develop His wonderful plan for the church.

Patricia Jean Brown, PhD

Founder and CEO of Lewis Academy

of Excellence Charter School

First Lady of True Vine Community COGIC

Tacoma, Washington

Acknowledgments

Our natural conception and birth are a result of human cooperation and establishes the priority the Creator places on our dependency on others for success and personal progress. This work is evidence of this collaboration and substantiates the reality that we are a total of all the influences made to our lives by the people we have had the privilege to come across on the journey of life. I am deeply appreciative for the inspiration and wisdom of the men and women, both past and present, which, through their lives, instructions, corrections, challenges, commitment, and example, disturbed gifts within me that I never knew existed.

I am also grateful to all the friends and colleagues of the church and community, the military, and corporate leaders who continue to inspire me to contribute to my generation and those to come.

For the development and production of this book itself, I feel a broad sense of gratitude to my precious wife, Doris, the primary editor, and our children—Gary, Nerressa, Sheryl, and Jeff—for their patience and support during my military years. Being a husband and father is the greatest gift God could give. My greatest joy is being able to exercise this gift with the family I love dearly.

Special thanks to my deceased mother, for having faith in me, even when I doubted myself, for showing love and support to the extent she risks her life to keep my sisters and myself out of harm’s way. Her natural ability to help others is among the most significant contributions she entrenched in me.

I sincerely thank my church, True Vine Community Church of God in Christ, in Tacoma, Washington, and my pastor, Bishop Leo C. Brown Jr., for their support and encouragement. It was through the church marriage ministry that provides me an unbeliever’s insight into how families work.

I am indebted to the many couples who have allowed me to enter into the privacy of their lives and query for better understanding and more effective ways of relating and providing more accurate solutions. In private sessions and group settings, many have heard the ideas presented in this book and came back with practical recommendations, and many of those ideas featured in this book.

Most of all, I am grateful to God, who called me to work in His vineyard of marriage and family relationships. I give all praise, honor, and glory to God. I realize I am a better person now because when others question my ability, God saw the best in me.

Preface

The twenty-first-century families are under fire. As we glance around the world the evidence is compelling. The prisons are filled with fathers, divorce rate continue to shadow marriages, while drugs and alcohol holds hostage too many of family members, and suicide among young people is at epidemic level. The nuclear family is declining and replaced by nontraditional family types.

Being a Christian who happens to be a marriage counselor, I conclude that there is more to this crisis than couple’s inability to communicate effectively, manage their finances, manage their children, or show affection to one another. As a counselor, I can teach these skills, but in many instances, it does not improve the relationship. What is the reason couples will not change their behavior when they want to make their relationship better? Is changing the problem?

Change is often the source of uncertainty and a measure of fear and anxiety. For many, this type of concern is difficult to manage, and it causes varying reactions. Some adverse results to change, including denial, ignorance, isolation, anger, resistance, and resentment. These responses can cause serious effects on the relation in which change is occurring. The result can be oppression, suppression, violence, and the spirit of control.

The impact on the family and society is also frightening. Spouses suffer the violence of anger. Children are victims of abuse and resentment, and society bears the scars of social deterioration. Governments are helpless to respond to this phenomenon. They find their ideas, laws, and social programs ineffective in addressing it. Marriages are apparently in trouble.

This book addresses answers to these critical questions from the perspective of God’s design for families. The purpose and role of the male and female are significant