This is another fantastic commercial that represents an emerging approach to advertising that seeks to empower its audience. It’s something of a counter-cultural approach in that most of advertising for nearly the last century has been dominated by what Jonah Sachs calls “inadequacy marketing.” Such marketing seeks to create in you a sense of lack – the belief that you do not have enough, even that you are not enough – in order to promise you that if you purchase the product being advertised you will not experience that sense of lack any longer. In his wonderful book, Winning the Story Wars, Sachs describes the history of this...

Describing Christian ministry as “relational” is not new. Since at least the 1970s, church leaders and authors have been inviting us to more relational ministry. But what kind of relationship did this paradigm assume? That’s the very important question that Andrew Root asks at the outset of his new book, The Relational Pastor: Sharing in Christ by Sharing Ourselves. [A quick but important disclosure: Andy is a colleague and good friend, and we’ve discussed many of the elements of the book while running together through our neighborhood. So I’m more than a little predisposed to recommend his book. Nevertheless, I really do think...