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Jesus encountered the temple system of worship in Israel when He came to earth, a system where men built shrines to God, ordained a \u201cpastor\u201d to \u201cshepherd\u201d the flock, and then abandoned their personal responsibilities to God and left them to him. This then evolved into a system of professionals and amateurs, of the certified who were revered and the uncertified who were largely forgotten, and of teachers and students in classrooms of knowledge.<\/p>\n
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To this system \u201cThe Good Shepherd\u201d came, setting a new example and introducing a new form of church. He said the response of His sheep would be twofold: \u201cto hear His voice\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0follow Him.\u201d Then He led them out of their lukewarm faith and mundane existences and showed them through His words\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0his example \u201cthey could have life, and that abundantly.\u201d We believe every man\u2019s place is significant in the body, and each has been given unique and critical giftedness that can be discovered, developed, and deployed there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n Once men\u2019s eyes are opened to the kingdom, we want to help them learn the language of the kingdom [hearing His voice through personal revelation] and to find shepherds like Jesus in the marketplaces of America to follow and emulate. We desire to return them to Jesus\u2019 model of shepherds and sheep, mentors and apprentices, disciplers and disciples and help them find communities of other kingdom men that follow Paul\u2019s prescription for the church found in 1st<\/sup>\u00a0Corinthians 14, where all contribute, all learn, and all are encouraged.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n\n As men\u2019s eyes are opened to the kingdom and they reengage with the Biblical model of discipleship and God\u2019s church, the Ecclesia, they will naturally reengage the communities around them in the marketplaces of everyday life [for more information go to www.Marketplacesaints.net<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jesus encountered the temple system of worship in Israel when He came to earth, a system where men built shrines to God, ordained a \u201cpastor\u201d to \u201cshepherd\u201d the flock, and then abandoned their personal responsibilities to God and left them to him. This then evolved into a system of professionals and amateurs, of the certified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":144,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page-fullwidth_template.php","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-223","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/223\/revisions\/269"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenedchristianman.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}