Book Review: Life Together

Life Together
By Dietrich Bonhoeffer                                                           
© 1954, New York, Harper and Row.  ISBN 978-0-06-060852-1           

 

In Bonhoeffer’s, Life Together, he points out that every move of God happens in the

context of Community.  This move of God is a new wine like that which was poured out in the

power of God’s Spirit on the disciples of Jesus.  But it also requires a new wineskin. The early

church’s way of thinking about the church’s mission and what constitutes success is vastly

different from what we see in the majority of church ministries today. Many younger

evangelicals are rejecting how modern churches tend to measure success.  They now want to

examine the viewpoint of achieving an early church missional focus.

The lack of direction and misguided measurements for success of many churches boils

down to a failure to focus on the mission of the church as defined by its early members. Most

church leaders think their mission is to build up the church out of the life of the community.  In

reality, Jesus calls us to a transformational mission that builds up the community out of the life

of the church.  The younger evangelical sees the church as the agent of change with in the

community much like that of the early church.

The first, second, and third century Christians were about this kind of transformational

mission.  They preached and practiced a Christ-like life in the communities where they lived. 

Being a follower of Jesus wasn’t a separate church function of their lives in which they

participated once a week; it was their life in community with one another. This is what defined

them.  When new believers were added to the church, scripture states, “They devoted themselves

to the apostle’s teachings and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts

2:42, NIV).  These early Christians had a mindset vastly different from our western twenty-first

century world. They saw prayer, walking in the Spirit, working at their jobs, caring for their

families, ministering to those in need, and the rest of their lives not in compartmentalized facets,

but as a whole—integrated and continuous. This is true of the younger evangelicals today.  They

really want to get back to a holistic approach of the Christian life.

So the emerging church in the first century tended to see prayer and faith and worship

and loving others as Christ loved as an integrated whole.  Church wasn’t a weekly event,

separate from their daily living. They were the church. That is what defined them.  The Younger

Evangelicals do not want to just think and talk about Christ one day of the week in a building

somewhere. They don’t think in terms of participating in a church program or just attending a

series of events. They want to experience the totality of what Jesus was all about and model it

daily before their children and within their community. They understand the mission Jesus gave

them as a journey, a relational pilgrimage of becoming more and more like their Lord, a mission

that is to be lived out in every aspect of their lives within their community locally.  It is an

experiential relationship with Jesus that transforms their attitudes and actions. Their corporate

prayer and worship in a fellowship is borne out in the attending to the physical and emotional

needs of people by caring for the sick, feeding the hungry, and befriending the outcasts and

rejects of society. Their mission is to raise up transformed followers of Jesus by seeing people in

their community redeemed spiritually as well as restored physically, relationally, economically,

etc.

As I read this book, I could not help but think of my own Christian walk and how it has

evolved over the years.  When I first came to Christ, I was a real legalist.  Things had to be done

a certain way or you were going to hell.  I did not give anybody any slack.  I was not really

interested in serving people.  I just wanted to tell the truth of the Gospel and not really move to

much farther beyond that.  That was until I had a unique experience happen to me in college. 

When I was in college, I accepted Christ and got involved in the local Baptist Student Union

(BSU).  After I was there for a few months, I volunteered to lead a Bible Study on Campus.  One

day I was running late, so I grabbed my materials and ran up the hill to the building where the

Bible Study was being held.  As I approached the top of the hill, A homeless man started toward

me.  When I saw him, I moved to the other side of the street.  So he moved to the other side of

the street.  I switched sides a few times, but he always followed me.  In my mind I said, “I do not

have time for this.  I am late.  Maybe I can give him a few bucks and he will leave me alone.” 

So as I approached him, I pulled a few dollars out and handed it to him.  As he took the money,

he grabbed my hand.  He would not let it go.  He said’ “Before you go, I have a quick question to

ask you”.  I thought, “Ok here comes this guy’s sob story.”  He asked me “Do you know Christ?” 

My heart sank.  He said, “I see college kids go by all the time and I wonder if they know Jesus.” 

At that moment I felt 2 inches tall.  Here I was going to teach a Bible Study about Christ and

missed an opportunity to minister to someone else.  As we talked, he told me that it was hard to

share with people because he did not have a bible.  I had some with me so I gave him one.  I

walked away changed that day.  As I read Life Together, I really began to identify with the

description that Bonhoeffer gave of living together in a community of Christ Followers.  I really

see how I have incorporated some of his ideas into my own ministry.

I believe God is raising up a new breed of Christ followers who want nothing more than a

mighty move of his Spirit.  God is calling each of us to return to the purity of the early church. I

believe that people around us need to experience a face-to-face encounter with God, be united as

a body in continual prayer, and engage their communities with a culturally relevant message and

lifestyle.  We must heed the call of the apostle who said, “I plead with you to give your bodies to

God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what

he has done for you, is that too much to ask? Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world

[not even the behavior of the religious world], but let God transform you into a new person by

changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do…” (Romans 12:1-2,

NLT).

I have realized that instead of leading people to say the prayer of accepting Christ, it is

more about coming out of our upper rooms of prayer empowered by God’s Spirit to lead them to

a face-to-face encounter with God and a spiritual formation process played out in the cycle of

believing, behaving, and belonging.  This establishes a grid by which we measure our lives in

relationship with Jesus.  Rather than focusing on church attendance, donations, and the number

of programs and events, I see that my journey must focus on getting to know Jesus intimately

for who he really is and becoming shaped and formed by the power of God’s Spirit in very

specific areas of my lives.  In doing so, I will be better equipped to fulfill the “zip-code” ministry

that God has called me to.