Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s little book Life Together is a classic on biblical community. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to check it out. I wanted to post an excerpt where Bonhoeffer speaks of the impact that praying for one another brings in true community. Let us consider these words as we continue to share our lives together on mission for the sake of the gospel and glory of Christ.

“A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another, or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife, that cannot be overcome by intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day.”

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 90.