The smartphone has reshaped nearly every dimension of life, and preaching is no exception. Pastors once served as the primary theological voice for their congregations, guiding people through Scripture with few immediate challenges to interpretation or historical claims. Today, nearly every listener carries in their pocket a device that can summon commentaries, articles, linguistic tools, and theological debates within seconds.
This accessibility brings benefits, but it also creates new complexities—particularly when congregants “fact-check” the pastor during the sermon.
A glowing screen in the pew may no longer signal simple distraction. It may indicate engaged study, or a skeptical congregant’s wish to directly verify something you just said from the pulpit. For pastors who faithfully labor over their sermons, such moments can feel like a quiet questioning of their credibility. This challenge isn’t merely technological; it’s personal and pastoral. How can we shepherd our people to receive the preached Word with humility amid a culture where instant verification has become instinctive?
The answer isn’t to resist technology totally or to rebuke the curious. Instead, we must disciple our congregations to listen well, evaluate wisely, and understand preaching as a part of their spiritual formation.
Understand the Impulse to Fact-Check
Before you begin shepherding sermon fact-checkers publicly (or privately), consider what motivates fact-checking during preaching. Though it may not feel like it when you’re in the pulpit, not every instance of real-time fact-checking is motivated by skepticism.
How can we shepherd our people to receive the preached Word with humility amid a culture where instant verification has become instinctive?
Some congregants use their phones like Bereans, to engage more deeply. They look up historical references or locations, explore cross-references, or confirm definitions. Their intentions aren’t confrontational but inquisitive.
Others may carry a more guarded posture shaped either by negative experiences with church leadership or by the online world’s culture of constant debate. For these fact-checkers, the smartphone has become a tool for verification rather than understanding.
Still others reach for their phones simply because our technological age has trained them to respond in this way instantly to any confusion. Rather than listening patiently to the entire sermon, they seek immediate clarity on any issue they have questions about.
Understanding these motivations prevents us from assuming hostility where there may be none. Our goal as preachers shouldn’t be to suppress questions but to shepherd the disposition from which those questions emerge.
Help Your Congregation Understand the Pulpit’s Purpose
What’s the most meaningful way a pastor can respond to phone use during his sermons? He can regularly teach his congregation about the nature of preaching. In a digital age, sermons can be mistaken for lectures or informational talks. If preaching is viewed merely as data transmission, the listener is naturally a reviewer, and one’s phone is seen as the impartial authority.
But preaching isn’t a presentation to be evaluated in fragments. It’s the exposition and proclamation of God’s Word for the formation of God’s people (Eph. 4:11–13; 2 Tim. 4:1–5). Pastors don’t speak on their personal authority, nor are their sermons prompts for a rapid-research contest. No, when the Word is preached, the congregation corporately sits beneath Scripture, listening for its divine correction and instruction (2 Tim. 3:14–17).
By reaffirming this understanding of preaching—through teaching, modeling, and consistent emphasis—pastors can help their congregations approach the sermon as participants in a sacred act rather than as auditors rating the accuracy of what they hear.
Shepherd Your Congregation in Active Listening
When teaching on preaching, pastors can also teach church members how to cultivate focus during worship. They can encourage their congregations to use physical Bibles, take notes, and write down questions for later study. They can explain that when church members instantly look up any questions they have, this can interrupt their understanding of the sermon’s flow and its gradually unfolding theological points.
Encourage your congregation to put their phones on silent, or even to turn them off during the worship service. This can be done without defensiveness or heavy-handedness. Provide a positive vision for attentive listening instead of a list of restrictions.
The goal of speaking directly about phone use during preaching isn’t to discourage further study but to preserve the sermon’s formative purpose. When we acknowledge both the presence and power of technology, we’re being realistic and demonstrating care.
If an individual consistently demonstrates a pattern of real-time phone use during preaching that arises from suspicious fact-checking or disrupts others’ engagement in worship, a gentle pastoral conversation may be necessary. You can approach such individuals with curiosity rather than accusations: “I’ve noticed you often look things up during a sermon, that you’re often looking down at your phone. I’d like to understand how I can help you engage more fully.” Curious questions establish relational trust and give the member space to express his concerns or confusion.
Some congregants will reveal their theological insecurity or an insatiable hunger to study; others may admit to habits formed by online culture. Whatever the reason for the unrestrained phone use, a clear conversation allows pastors to gently redirect fact-checkers toward healthier discipleship habits.
Patience is essential. Congregants formed by technology won’t shift their habits overnight. But with consistent care, we can help them listen with greater openness.
Lead Listeners Toward Receptivity
Remember, your broader aim isn’t to limit phone use. The deeper goal is spiritual growth. Pastors must help their congregations embrace a listening posture shaped by reverence, attentiveness, and openness to the Spirit’s work.
Congregants formed by technology won’t shift their habits overnight. But with consistent care, they can learn to listen with greater openness.
Encourage pre-sermon prayer, reflective engagement during preaching, and intentional review afterward to reorient listeners away from instant evaluation. Then the sermon will be received not as an information product but as a formative encounter with Scripture. Technology may provide quick answers, but it can’t produce spiritual maturity. Preaching, by contrast, invites a slower, more contemplative rhythm—one that digital habits often disrupt.
Smartphones will remain part of the worshiping environment. There’s no way around it. Instant access to information will continue to shape how congregants listen. Yet with patient shepherding, thoughtful instruction, and a renewed emphasis on the sacred nature of preaching, pastors can help their people engage with sermons in a way that’s healthier and more spiritually fruitful.
The Gospel Coalition