Practicing Life Together: A Common Rule for Christian Growth

You don’t have to go it alone after college—nor should you!

Even when we want good things, when we desire what’s right, we’re often frustrated by how we fail to follow through. Practicing Life Together invites readers to experience the blessings and benefits of a common rule.

A rule of life is like a trellis. It’s a standard, offering guidance and encouraging growth in the right direction. It’s a way of living intentionally—of making a commitment to spiritual disciplines that are too important to leave up to our day-to-day whims. And the best way to take on a rule of life? Doing it with others.

Practicing Life Together invites emerging adults to consider participating in a common rule that will guide their growth and cultivate genuine community. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer discerned, Christian community is “not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” Christians don’t have to go it alone during the formative years after college—it’s possible to practice life together. Paul Gutacker introduces practices we can take up with others—communal prayer, weekly dinners, studying together, and Sabbath—in the hope that these can become life-shaping habits.

PAUL GUTACKER is a historian who lives in Waco, Texas. Since 2018, Paul, his wife, Paige, and their four children have been enjoying life with the Brazos Fellows, a community that studies, prays, eats, and discerns together. When he’s not teaching, he loves sharing in favorite pastimes with his kids: cooking, fishing, reading, and rooting on the Buffalo Bills.