Privacy Policy
Last updated: October 9, 2026
Apprentices ("we," "our," or "the app") is a discipleship tool designed for Christian small group communities. We take your privacy seriously. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights.
Summary
- We collect the minimum data needed for the app to function: a display name, and your phone number if you sign in with one. No email address or Apple ID is collected.
- Your journal entries, personal reflections and mid-week check-in notes are stored only on your device.
- We do not sell or monetize your data. Your group sees what you share with it, and the outside services listed below receive only what they need to do their job.
- We do not use tracking or advertising services. Six-week check answers are reported to your church and to Grace-Centered Life, the ministry behind Apprentices, as totals with no names. If you say yes at your six-week check, we also count, with no names, what you brought, the pattern and practices you chose, and what you wrote, and may quote your words without your name. If you say no, none of it is counted or quoted.
- Your journal entries and personal reflections are never sent to or analyzed by AI. One leader-only feature sends text the leader types to an AI service to generate a workshop pattern; details below.
- You can permanently delete your account and all your data at any time from within the app.
Data We Collect
Account Information. When you set up the app, you choose a display name and can sign in with your phone number. We text a one-time code to that number, and it lets you recover your account on a new phone. You can also continue without a phone number. The app creates a random account identifier and access credential on our server. We do not collect your email address, Apple ID, or any other contact information.
Group Data. When you create or join a group, the following data is synced to our server so group members can see it: group name, meeting schedule, gathering records, workshop session summaries (member name and topic only), commitments (the practices, the listening question, and who is discipling whom), prayer request summaries, the turn order, and discipler assignments.
Before Your Turn. A week before your turn, the app asks what you want to work on and helps you get ready: whether you want to stop or start something, your answers to the first questions of the workshop, the feelings you name, and any moments you log during the week. All of this stays on your phone until you choose to send it. When you send, your answers and only the moments you choose are stored on our server, and only you can see them until your workshop starts. Then your group sees them at the start of your workshop.
Six-Week Check. Six weeks after a commitment starts, you and your discipler are each asked whether anything has changed, and you are asked how this attempt compares with earlier ones. The answers are stored on our server with your account. If you write something, we ask whether we may quote it without your name. If you say no, it stays private. If you say yes, it may be quoted in reports to churches and in Grace-Centered Life's own materials, such as its website, and never with your name.
Local-Only Data. The following data is stored only on your device and is never sent to our server: journal entries, personal reflections, mid-week check-in notes, and any data you choose not to share with your group.
How We Use Your Data
- Group coordination. Shared data (commitments, prayer requests, gathering records) is synced between group members so your community can support one another between gatherings.
- App functionality. Your data powers features like commitment tracking, workshop rotation, and gathering history.
- Measuring whether the app helps. We count six-week answers (better, the same or worse, and whether commitments were kept) and report the totals to the churches using Apprentices and to Grace-Centered Life. If you say yes to the question at your six-week check, the totals also include what you brought before your turn (counted by theme, never in your words), the pattern and practices in your commitment, and whether it was built. These reports contain no names and never show one group on its own. Something you wrote is quoted only if you agreed, and never with your name.
We do not use your data for any other purpose. We do not build profiles, serve advertisements, or train machine learning models on your content.
AI Processing (Custom Patterns)
One feature uses AI. When a group leader writes a description of a struggle that doesn't fit the app's built-in patterns, that typed description (along with the member's non-identifying practical profile, such as work schedule) is sent to our server and processed by Anthropic's Claude API to generate a custom workshop pattern. The description:
- is sent only when a leader explicitly uses the custom pattern feature;
- is not stored on our server after the pattern is generated;
- is not used to train AI models (Anthropic does not train on API data).
No other data in the app is ever sent to or analyzed by AI. Your journal entries, reflections, and prayer requests never touch this feature.
Data Storage and Security
Local data is stored using Apple's SwiftData framework on your device. Synced data is stored on a secure server. Authentication credentials are stored in your device's Keychain, which is protected by Apple's hardware-level security. All network communication uses HTTPS encryption.
Third-Party Services
We use the following third-party services:
- Anthropic (Claude API): processes leader-typed custom pattern descriptions only, as described above.
- Twilio: sends the sign-in code to your phone. Twilio receives your phone number and nothing else.
- Slack: Grace-Centered Life reads new six-week answers and the totals in a private Slack workspace. These posts carry no names.
- Supabase: for Scripture data storage only. No personal data is sent to Supabase.
We do not integrate with any advertising, crash reporting, or social media services.
Data Retention and Deletion
You can delete your data at any time:
- Selective deletion: Delete your journal entries from the Privacy & Data screen in the app.
- Full account deletion: Use "Delete Account & All Data" in the Privacy & Data screen. This permanently deletes your account and your data from our server (your phone number, commitments, prayer requests, what you sent before your turn, profile, and memberships), removes your name from past workshop records and six-week answers so only anonymous totals remain, erases all local data, and resets the app.
- By email: You can also request deletion at peter@gracecentered.life and we will complete it within 30 days.
Records that belong to the whole group (such as a gathering's date and passage) remain with the group after you leave or delete your account, with your identity removed.
Children's Privacy
Apprentices is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.
Location and Tracking
We do not collect location data. We do not track your activity across other apps or websites. We do not use device fingerprinting or any form of cross-app tracking.
Changes to This Policy
If we make material changes to this privacy policy, we will update the "Last updated" date and notify users through the app. Your continued use of the app after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.
Contact
If you have questions about this privacy policy or your data, contact us at: