Privacy Policy
The Formation App
Effective Date: October 1, 2026
Owner / Controller: Fourth Reason, LLC
Contact: support@theformation.app
Website: https://theformation.app
1. Overview
The Formation App (“we,” “our,” or “us”) is a discipleship and community app that helps churches guide people into daily spiritual practices and shared growth experiences.
We do not sell personal data. We collect only what is necessary to make the app function and support your church community.
2. Information We Collect
We collect limited information to create and authenticate your account, sync activity across devices, enable community participation, provide support, and improve the app.
Information you provide directly
| Type | Examples | Why we collect it |
|---|---|---|
| Account information | Email, name, password, or OAuth identifier (Google or Apple) | To create and secure your account |
| Community participation | Prayer requests, task completions, progress, achievements, and invitations | To provide journeys, community encouragement, and prayer features |
| Support inquiries | Messages you send us | To help you resolve issues |
When you use care features, we store the reflections, encouragement, conversations, contact preferences, and care activity you submit. Your church may import roster and contact information from Church Community Builder (CCB). A roster import does not itself opt a person into care or text messages, or link a church record to a Formation account.
Information collected automatically
| Type | Examples | Why we collect it |
|---|---|---|
| Device and app diagnostics | Crash logs, performance data, and device information | To improve reliability and troubleshoot errors |
| Usage analytics | Navigation, feature usage, and interaction patterns | To improve the experience and onboarding |
| Push notification tokens | Device push token issued by Apple or Google | To deliver notifications you have opted into |
| Subscription information (administrators only) | Subscription status and billing history | To manage paid community plans purchased on the web |
3. How We Use Your Information
We use collected data only to authenticate you and enable login, sync your progress and community participation, improve app performance and stability, provide customer support, and process community subscription payments for administrators on the web.
We do not sell your data, share it with advertisers, or use it to build advertising profiles. Any analytics we use are for improving the app, not for targeting.
4. Data Sharing
We share data only with service providers necessary to run the app:
| Service | What they do |
|---|---|
| Supabase | Stores account data, user content, and progress |
| Google (Sign in with Google) | Verifies your identity if you choose Google sign-in |
| Apple (Sign in with Apple) | Verifies your identity if you choose Apple sign-in |
| Firebase Cloud Messaging | Delivers push notifications |
| Stripe (web only) | Processes community subscription payments for administrators |
| Anthropic | Provides optional AI Help and AI-assisted journey and content tools. Submitted chat messages and prompts are sent to Anthropic to provide a response or generate requested content. Do not enter sensitive personal information in AI prompts. |
| Perplexity | Provides optional resource suggestions for community administrators. Task titles, task descriptions, and community resource preferences such as themes, authors, and resource types are sent as prompts to obtain suggestions. |
| Clearstream | Processes phone numbers, message content, replies, and delivery status for care text messaging when enabled. |
5. Data Ownership
Your account, progress, and any prayer request you submit belong to you.
Other people in your community may see limited activity that encourages shared growth, including your name, time invested, completed-task count, achievement count, and the practice or journey connected to your most recent completed task.
Journal entries and optional task reflections are stored in Formation. In the app, these entries are readable only by the member who wrote them; community administrator or care-team access does not grant access to another member’s Journal.
Private care conversations are separate from the Journal and Encouragement Board. They are available to the member, the current assigned caregiver, and care-team members explicitly granted private-conversation oversight. General community administration or assignment coordination alone does not grant that access.
Encouragement Board posts are shared encouragement, not private journal entries. The recipient and care-team members with the applicable encouragement permission can read the board. Eligible friends can contribute encouragement; friendship alone does not grant access to the recipient’s full board or private conversations.
Care coordination records, including roster information, assignments, contact activity, and audit history, are separate from the Journal and Encouragement Board. Access depends on the care-team permissions granted for each function. Community administrators may also see member and progress information needed to manage their community.
Prayer requests use the Community Prayer feature’s sharing controls; you may choose to submit a prayer request anonymously.
6. Security
We use secure storage, encrypted data transmission over HTTPS / TLS, and password hashing. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we use reasonable measures designed to protect the data we process.
7. Your Rights
You may access your data, correct or delete your data, and request account deletion. Submit requests to support@theformation.app. We will respond within 30 days.
8. Children
The Formation App is not intended for children under 13 years old. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it.
9. Changes to This Policy
If we make changes, we will update the Effective Date at the top and notify users in the app.
10. Contact
Questions about this policy can be sent to support@theformation.app. You can also visit our support page.