Life Together (1954) by Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a short, densely packed volume of what life and Christian community should look like. This book was published in 1954, nine years after Bonhoeffer was killed by the Nazi regime. In it, however, our series of teachings on living with one another as Christians. He proclaims "Christian community is like the Christian sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim." One of the things that I really appreciated about this book was how he walks through the rhythms of the day. There's much to aspire to. He calls the Christian to gather in worship in the early morning for hymns, the reading of the word, and prayer. He also talks in a fairly detailed fashion about the importance of the Lord's supper, A sacrament too often ignored in many evangelical churches. I particularly benefited from his chapters on silence and solitude and confession and communion. It seems to me that Bonhoeffer has much to teach us modern-day evangelicals about what the Christian life can or should look like. I would highly recommend this book.

This is Bonhoeffer's famous study of life in Christian community. He makes suggestions for daily worship in a small community, including practices of Bible study, meditation, prayer, and intercession. He spends a good amount of time on finding the balance between living as part of a community and functioning alone. He also spends a good amount of time talking about the importance of listening as ministry (recognizing the image of God in the other allows us to listen in the presence of Christ rather than trying to seek advantage from what we hear), and he closes with a discussion about how a practice of confession between Christian brothers and sisters can help strengthen the sense of fellowship in a Christian community. The book is not a long one (my copy was only 122 pages long), but it was definitely worth the read, and I found some ideas around community-building that I have never encountered anywhere else.

My husband had me read this so he could interview me about it for one of his classes. I liked it more than I thought I would! I was scared it would be too hard for me to understand because my husband reads some really dense stuff. And there were a few pieces that seemed a bit over my head but I understood most of it and learned a lot. I really loved the emphasis of being intentional in our prayer lives.

I'm reading this with my house right now.

I remember this being a really good book on Christian Community.
I'm definitely planning on re-reading it soon.