Before you write: who can see this

Your journal is private. No one else who uses it can see an entry unless you choose to share that entry with them.

Sharing is always your choice, one entry at a time. You can share an entry with someone you trust, such as a leader or a friend. They can read it, not change it. You can stop sharing at any moment and it disappears from their view, and they aren't notified. Once someone has read an entry, though, we can't make them forget it or stop them copying it, so share what you'd be comfortable with them keeping.

But it isn't secret from us. Your entries are stored on theChurch.digital's servers. Only our director can open them, and only if you ask or your safety requires it, and every time is logged. The automated systems that run the journal handle your entries but never read them. Nothing you write is ever used for anything — not in a devotional, a video, a post, a statistic or an example. Not with your name, and not without it.

If you'd like to write something no one else could ever read, a paper journal is the right place for it, and we'd rather tell you that now than have you find out later.

Nothing tracks you here. Journal pages have no analytics, no advertising pixels and no tracking of any kind.

The days you read. When you open a devotional while signed in, we note the day, so your 1 Peter picture can light up. That record stays in your journal, private like your entries, is never used for anything else, and is deleted with your journal.

Age. The journal is for people aged 13 and over (16 and over where your country's law requires it).

Deleting. You can delete a single entry or your whole journal at any time, right here, with no email and no waiting. Deleting an entry also removes it from anyone you shared it with. Your writing is removed from our database immediately. We then ask Cloudflare to remove it from their backup and recovery systems, which takes up to 30 days.

Your Sunday email. Each Sunday we'll email you a link to what you wrote that week. It doesn't include your writing unless you turn that on in settings. If you do, remember that an email stays in your inbox even after you delete the entry here. You can stop the email at any time.

Your contact details. Signing up adds your name and email to theChurch.digital's contact list, so you may get our emails. You can unsubscribe from those at any time, and that doesn't affect your journal. Your photo stays in the journal and is never added to our contact list. Deleting your journal removes your photo straight away, but not your contact record. Ask us and we'll remove that too.