Ask Pastor Mike Live

Focal Point Ministries: This is a good question. Sarah writes in and asks, "Is it wrong for church leaders or pastors to openly admire and reference secular figures or content, like Taylor Swift or non-biblical sources, in sermons and ministry work?"

Is it wrong? Your example is pretty provocative to mention Taylor Swift. I think it wouldn't do me well to give credibility to my preaching if I started dropping admiration in my sermons for Taylor Swift. I don't think the respect for me as a Bible teacher or a theologian would be increased by trying to get pop stars quoted in my sermons.

Non-biblical sources? We see plenty of examples of that in scripture. Paul, for instance, in Acts 17 is standing before the Athenian professors at a place old translations called Mars Hill, the Areopagus, where they would debate philosophy and theology. He quotes some of the Athenian poets, and there's nothing wrong with that, particularly if it can appeal in a particular way to someone.

When I teach homiletics, I say that it's good for us to quote people when the person I'm quoting might be strategic for my audience in doing something that just me saying it isn't going to be enough. If I'm looking at a passage of scripture and I'm commenting on it and explaining it, and I'm thinking 80 percent of the people in the audience are going, "I don't think you know what you're talking about," then I might enlist a biblical scholar or someone that they're going to respect as a Bible authority.

I might want to drop a quotation there with their name attached to it so they say, "Oh, well, we admire him. We think he knows what he's talking about." That's a good time to drop a name. I doubt anyone is going to take most pop culture sources as an authority. I might use a non-biblical source in a sermon for the sake of rhetoric or as an illustration.

I used an illustration just this week that was based on an old TV talk show from 25 years ago. I thought it would be something that they might recognize. All the people like me recognized it, and it bridged a gap that brought up an old subject that I thought people would know what I'm talking about. It made my point in theory, and I thought that was helpful. It was just an illustration, though, and had nothing to do with bringing authority into the sermon.

If it's for humor, perhaps, but humor needs to be very carefully used in the pulpit. Paul was using it as a bridge, and I think his bridge in Acts 17 was trying to say, "Even your own poets say this." With that regard, he was trying to say what I'm saying isn't crazy; it's not like you haven't heard these kinds of things before. You guys talk about this stuff, and that would be a time when bringing a non-biblical source into your conversation in a church is appropriate.

People are going to admire people like a quarterback or a golfer. I think about these pastors who admire people that do things, like a race car driver or a Formula One driver. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Your pastor is a human being who has hobbies or interests. As long as it's not somebody who is known for vulgarity or something anti-Christian, I suppose it's not bad, but it becomes risky depending on who the audience of your pastor is.

The broader his audience, the more careful he needs to be. I think about my preaching going out across the country on close to 900 radio stations. I have to be careful what I'm saying. If I bring up a name, it's going to have an effect. If I'm a guest speaker in one of the sub-pulpits in our midweek stuff where only 80 people are going to hear it, I can probably be a little bit more broad in admiring some jazz musician or some race car driver.

We just need to be careful because there is definitely an offense that some people can take just because they know something sometimes that I don't even know. It was great when my kids were in my home and hearing every sermon I preached because sometimes they would say, "Dad, I don't think you should be saying that because that guy's a weirdo." I hope that helps, Sarah. That's a good question. Regarding your example of Taylor Swift, I would never drop her name in a sermon.