Live // Bow Down is the discipleship app of Bow Down Church. This policy explains what the app stores about you, why, who else can see it, and how to have it deleted. We only collect what the app needs to do its job.
What we collect
Your account
Your name, email address, and a password if you set one. Passwords are stored hashed, never in a form we can read. We also keep your role in the church and the discipleship step you are on.
Planning Center
If you sign in with Planning Center or connect it, we store your Planning Center ID and the access tokens that let the app read on your behalf. From Planning Center we read your name, email, house church assignment, and your serving schedule, and we cache your recent serving history so the app can show it without asking again.
What you write
Your “I will” commitments and the reflections you add to them, your progress and answers in studies, journal entries, milestones, and prayer requests you post to your house church.
Your groups
Which house church and fight club you belong to, and who leads them.
Notifications
Your per-type email and push settings, a record of notifications we sent you, and a device token for each device you allow push on.
Asking to join
If you send a join request without an account, we keep the name, email, phone number and message you typed so someone can reply to you.
What we do not collect
No advertising, and no advertising identifiers. The app contains no ad networks.
No third-party analytics or tracking SDKs. We do not build profiles about you and we do not track you across other apps or websites.
No location data.
No phone number, unless you type one into a join request yourself.
No contacts, photos, microphone, or camera. The app has no scanner of its own: a fight club code is either typed in, or opened as a link by your phone's own camera app.
Who can see what you write
Your commitments
Every “I will” carries a visibility you choose. Shared with your fight club means the members of that club and its leader can read it. Leader only means just the person who leads your club.
Prayer requests
Visible to the house church you posted them to.
Journal entries
Private to you.
Church leaders
Administrators can see accounts and church-wide content in order to run the app. They do not have a way to read your journal.
Who else your data reaches
Planning Center Online
The church directory and serving schedule come from Planning Center. Your use of it is governed by their privacy policy as well as this one.
Expo push notifications
Device tokens pass through Expo and then Google or Apple to deliver a notification to your phone.
Email delivery
Emails the app sends you go through our email provider.
Hosting
The app runs on Render and Vercel, and the database is hosted in the United States.
Sermon video
Sermons play from YouTube. Watching one means Google sees the request, as it would on any site that embeds a video.
We do not sell your data, and we do not share it with anyone for advertising.
How long we keep it
We keep your information while your account exists. Delete your account and the personal parts go with it, as described below.
Sermons, events, announcements and study material are the church's record rather than yours, and remain after an account is deleted. Where those were authored by someone who leaves, they pass to another administrator.
Backups may hold copies for a short period after deletion before they age out.
Deleting your account
Open Profile and choose Delete my account, or go to live.bowdownchurch.com/delete-account. It removes your account, commitments, reflections, progress, journal entries, prayer requests, group memberships, notification settings and devices.
If you cannot sign in, email discipleship@bowdownchurch.com from the address on your account and we will delete it for you.
You can also ask us for a copy of what we hold, or ask us to correct it, at the same address.
Keeping it safe
Traffic is encrypted in transit. Passwords are hashed. Sign-in tokens are held in your device's secure storage. Access to the database is limited to the people who maintain the app.
No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If a breach affects you, we will tell you.
Children
The app is intended for members of the church aged 13 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you believe a child has an account, email us and we will remove it.
Changes
If this policy changes we will update the date at the top, and tell you in the app when the change is significant.