Privacy Policy

Focus on Jesus Ministries | Church Harbor

Last Updated: October 23, 2026

1. Introduction

At Focus on Jesus Ministries, we believe your privacy matters. Our mission is to share the love of Jesus and help people grow in their daily walk with Him. We are committed to respecting your personal information and protecting the trust you place in us.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, when we share it, and the choices and rights you have.

This policy applies to Focus on Jesus Ministries, a United States 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, including:

Our website at focusonjesusministries.com.
Church Harbor, our Bible-reading and spiritual-growth application.
Our ministry programs, forms, donations, and communications.
Related websites, services, and activities that link to this policy.

Throughout this policy, "we," "us," and "our" refer to Focus on Jesus Ministries. "Church Harbor" refers to the application owned and operated by Focus on Jesus Ministries.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information needed to provide our services, improve the user experience, communicate with you, and carry out our ministry activities.

Information You Provide

Depending on how you interact with us, this may include:

Account information: Your name, email address, login credentials, and optional profile information.
Contact information: Your phone number, mailing address, and communication preferences when provided.
Verification information: Information needed to verify your identity or secure your account, including verification requests, confirmation status, and related security records.
Bible reading and spiritual-growth information: Your reading history, bookmarks, highlights, notes, reading plans, progress, and preferences.
Personal journals and prayers: Journal entries, private prayer records, personal reflections, and other content you choose to save.
Church connections: Information about a church you voluntarily connect with through Church Harbor.
Ministry participation: Information submitted through forms, applications, volunteer opportunities, ministry programs, or correspondence.
Donations and transactions: Donation amounts, transaction records, and information needed to process contributions and provide receipts, where applicable.
Communications: Messages, inquiries, feedback, and information you provide when contacting us or subscribing to communications.

You may read publicly available Bible content in Church Harbor without creating an account. Certain features, including saving and synchronizing personal information, require an account.

Optional Private-Writing Analysis and Personalised Recommendations

Your personal prayers, journals and Bible notes are private. We do not routinely have people read them. Where this optional feature is available, you may separately choose to allow automated analysis, including artificial intelligence (AI), to identify general themes in the entries you select, such as hope, forgiveness, relationships, anxiety or perseverance.

These themes may be associated with your Church Harbor profile so the app can suggest relevant Bible passages, reading plans and free spiritual-growth resources. They are automated inferences, not verified facts, diagnoses or judgments about you. The themes are not ordinarily displayed as a separate profile in the app, but they remain personal information while associated with you and are subject to applicable access and correction rights.

This analysis is optional. You may use private journals and notes without enabling AI theme analysis. Where consent is required, we request it separately before analysis begins; you can withdraw it and ask us to remove associated theme information, subject to applicable legal limits.

We seek to minimise disclosure by processing private writing on your device where feasible. If a feature uses an authorised external AI processing service, we will explain this before you enable it and apply contractual and technical safeguards. We do not intentionally include your name or account identifiers in material submitted solely for theme analysis. Removing those identifiers does not necessarily make the writing anonymous: the text itself may reveal personal or sensitive information.

Our personnel and church administrators do not have routine access to read private entries or view an individual's inferred themes. Any exceptional human access to information that is technically accessible to us is restricted to a justified purpose, such as a support request you authorise, a security incident or a legal obligation, with appropriate access controls and oversight. We do not promise that access is technically impossible unless a feature is specifically designed and described as end-to-end encrypted or otherwise inaccessible to us.

Optional Contributions to Anonymous Ministry Research

With a separate choice where applicable, themes derived from private writing may be used to help produce aggregate reports about broad interests and needs among participating readers across geographical areas. For example, a report might describe the percentage of participating adult readers in a sufficiently large region whose writing included an anger-related theme. Such a result would describe a topic identified in participating users' content, not a diagnosis or a claim about everyone living in that area.

We do not share original journal text, quotations from private entries, individual theme profiles or personally identifying records in these reports. We use measures such as sufficiently large groups, limiting geographic detail, excluding small groups, and statistical privacy protections where appropriate to reduce the risk of identifying anyone.

Information linked or reasonably linkable to a person remains protected as personal information during analysis and aggregation. Only statistics that have been effectively anonymised are disclosed as anonymous reports. Choosing not to contribute to these reports does not prevent you from using private journaling or personalised suggestions.

Information Collected Automatically

When you use our websites or applications, we may collect limited technical information, including your IP address, device type, operating system, browser, application version, approximate location derived from your IP address, crash reports, and basic usage information.

We use this information to maintain security, troubleshoot problems, understand service performance, and improve functionality.

We do not use private journal entries, prayer content, or personal Bible annotations to build advertising profiles.

Anonymous Statistical Information

We may collect and generate anonymous, aggregated statistical information about the use of our services, Bible-reading engagement, and broader trends that may help churches, ministries, and Christian organizations better understand and serve their communities.

We may also share such anonymous statistical information with Bible content providers, churches, ministry organizations, researchers, and other parties working to advance the mission and effectiveness of the Christian church.

We share statistical reports only when they are effectively anonymised so that no individual can reasonably be identified.

For example, anonymous statistics might describe broad Bible-reading trends, overall application engagement, or general patterns across groups of users without identifying any particular person.

We do not disclose individual reading histories, personally identifiable activity records, private journal entries, prayer content, or personal notes as part of these statistical reports.

We take appropriate measures to prevent identification of individuals through combinations of statistical information, including limiting or combining data where necessary.

Where information originates from personal data, applicable privacy protections continue to apply during its processing until it has been effectively anonymized. Information that remains capable of identifying an individual is treated as personal information under this policy.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use personal information for the following purposes:

Providing our services: Creating accounts, displaying Bible passages, saving reading progress, synchronizing preferences, and supporting requested features.
Account verification and security: Confirming phone numbers, delivering one-time access codes, verifying identities, assisting with account access, and protecting accounts from unauthorized use.
Supporting spiritual growth: Providing tools for Bible study, personal reflection, prayer, journaling, and reading plans.
Optional AI-assisted personalisation: With your permission where required, extracting themes from the private writing you select to recommend relevant Scripture and free resources.
Church connections: Enabling church-related features and content when you choose to connect with a church.
Communication: Responding to questions, providing requested updates, sending service notifications, and delivering communications you have agreed to receive.
Ministry operations: Managing donations, programs, applications, and other charitable activities.
Optional anonymous ministry research: Where applicable, using consented theme contributions and other eligible information to create effectively anonymised statistics for broader ministry research.
Security and improvement: Protecting accounts, preventing abuse, correcting errors, and improving reliability.
Legal compliance: Meeting applicable legal, accounting, reporting, and recordkeeping obligations.

We do not sell your personal information.

We do not use private spiritual reflections, prayers, or Bible-reading activity for third-party behavioral advertising.

4. Your Spiritual Privacy

We recognize that spiritual life is deeply personal. Your Bible reading, prayers, reflections, and journals may contain sensitive information.

Private journals are not public posts, counselling sessions or emergency-response communications. We do not routinely examine private writing to detect threats, emergencies, criminal activity or personal crises, and automated resource suggestions should not be relied upon to detect, assess or respond to those situations. If information becomes known to us independently or through legally authorised access, we may respond when legally required or otherwise permitted in an urgent safety situation.

Your private spiritual content belongs to you, and connecting with a church does not give that church access to it.

In Church Harbor:

Your personal journals, private prayers, Bible notes, highlights, bookmarks, and reading history are private by default.
Church leaders and administrators cannot automatically view these records simply because you connect with their church.
We do not disclose private spiritual records to churches, ministry partners, or other users without your direction or another applicable legal basis.
If you choose to share a prayer request, message, reflection, or other information with a church or community, that information may become visible to the intended recipients according to the sharing options presented to you.
We restrict human access to private writing and individual inferred themes. They are not available for routine staff review or church administration. Exceptional access, where technically possible, is limited, justified and subject to safeguards.

Please avoid including sensitive personal information about other people in shared prayers, posts, or submissions unless you have appropriate permission.

Religious and Other Sensitive Information

Information about religious beliefs, and certain information included in personal prayers or journals, may be considered sensitive personal data under applicable privacy laws.

Inferences derived from your writing may also reveal sensitive information, including religious beliefs or health-related concerns. We do not use private-writing themes to determine eligibility for services, target third-party advertisements, or make legal or similarly significant decisions about you.

We process this information only for appropriate purposes connected to services you request, activities you voluntarily participate in, or other lawful purposes.

Where the EU GDPR or UK GDPR requires explicit consent for processing special-category personal data, we rely on that consent or another applicable legal condition. You may withdraw consent as provided in this policy.

We do not assume that using a Bible-reading application establishes a particular religious belief, denomination, or church membership.

5. Our Legal Bases for Processing Information

For individuals protected by the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) or United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), we process personal information only when we have a lawful basis.

Depending on the purpose, these bases include:

Purpose	Legal Basis
Creating accounts and providing requested services	Performance of a contract
Sending requested one-time access codes and verifying accounts	Performance of a contract or legitimate interests in account security, as applicable
Saving personal reading progress, notes, and requested account features	Performance of a contract, with an additional legal condition where required for sensitive information
Optional church connections and sharing	Consent or performance of a requested service, as applicable
Sending optional ministry updates or promotional text messages	Consent
Providing support, maintaining security, and improving service reliability	Legitimate interests or performance of a contract
Producing statistics to improve our services and support ministry activities	Legitimate interests or consent, as applicable, with additional safeguards for sensitive information
Processing donations and maintaining required financial records	Performance of a contract or legal obligation, as applicable
Meeting legal and regulatory requirements	Legal obligation
Processing sensitive religious or other special-category data	An applicable Article 9 condition, including explicit consent where required
Optional AI analysis of private writing for personalised Scripture and resource suggestions	Consent under Article 6(1)(a), and explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) where the analysis involves special-category data
Using eligible individual theme contributions to prepare anonymous statistical reports	Consent where required, including explicit consent for special-category processing; the GDPR no longer applies to the resulting information once effectively anonymised

Our legitimate interests include operating a secure and reliable nonprofit service, preventing misuse, answering inquiries, and improving our services without unnecessarily interfering with your privacy.

When consent is our legal basis, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal does not affect processing lawfully completed before withdrawal.

We record the purposes for which you consent and do not treat ordinary use of Church Harbor as consent for optional AI theme analysis or contribution to theme-based research.

We do not make decisions about individuals based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects.

6. When We Share Information

We do not sell or rent personal information.

We share personal information only when reasonably necessary and legally permitted, including the following circumstances.

Service Providers

We use trusted providers for hosting, infrastructure, authentication, technical support, message delivery, payment processing, and other essential services.

These providers may process limited personal information on our behalf to perform the services we request, subject to applicable contractual, security, and legal obligations.

If you separately enable AI analysis that uses an external processing service, that service may process the text you choose to analyse solely under our instructions and applicable safeguards. We will identify the processing approach in the feature's consent notice. We will not allow AI providers to use submitted private writing to train general-purpose models or for advertising under our service arrangements.

Bible Content Providers

Church Harbor uses authorized Bible content providers to retrieve and display Scripture.

We do not share personal information with Bible content providers.

Bible passage requests are handled through our own servers. We do not provide Bible content providers with users' names, email addresses, phone numbers, account identifiers, personal IP addresses, private journals, prayers, personal notes, or identifiable reading histories.

We may provide Bible content providers with anonymous statistical information, including aggregated Scripture usage and engagement statistics, where appropriate or required by our content licensing agreements.

Such statistics do not identify individual users.

Anonymous Statistics for the Benefit of the Church

We may provide anonymous, aggregated statistical information to churches, denominations, ministry organizations, researchers, Bible publishers, and other organizations whose work may benefit the Christian church.

This may include broad trends in Scripture engagement, application usage, or other statistical information that may help organizations better serve their communities.

Where authorised, these reports may also describe aggregated, non-identifying themes from consenting users' private writings. They do not contain individual inferred theme profiles or excerpts from private writing. We do not publish small or narrowly defined regional groups where identification risks remain.

We do not provide these organizations with personally identifiable information as part of our anonymous statistical reporting.

We take steps to ensure shared statistics cannot reasonably be used to identify individual users.

Churches You Choose to Connect With

When you voluntarily connect Church Harbor with a church, we may share limited information necessary to establish and maintain that relationship and provide church-connected features.

Your private Bible-reading activity, journals, personal prayer records, notes, and highlights are not automatically shared with that church.

If you deliberately share information through a church-connected feature, the intended recipients may access that information according to the permissions and sharing choices presented to you.

Legal and Safety Requirements

We may disclose information when required by law or when reasonably necessary to respond to valid legal process, protect rights, investigate security incidents, or prevent serious harm.

Organizational Changes

If responsibility for operating a service changes, personal information may be transferred only in accordance with applicable law and the privacy commitments associated with that information.

Any organization that independently collects or processes your personal information may be responsible for its own privacy practices. This policy does not replace that organization's privacy policy.

Text messaging consent and mobile information are subject to the additional restrictions in Section 7.

7. Text Messaging and SMS Privacy

Focus on Jesus Ministries uses SMS/text messaging for two purposes:

Direct ministry communications: Communicating with individuals who have agreed to receive appropriate messages from Focus on Jesus Ministries.
Church Harbor account verification and security: Delivering one-time access codes, phone verification codes, and authentication messages to Church Harbor users.

All such messages are sent by or on behalf of Focus on Jesus Ministries, which owns and operates Church Harbor.

These services are not operated on behalf of any church associated with Church Harbor.

We do not provide SMS messaging services to churches, businesses, ministry partners, or other third parties.

A. Ministry Communications

Focus on Jesus Ministries may communicate directly by SMS with individuals who have established a relationship with the ministry and provided appropriate consent.

Depending on the communications you have agreed to receive, messages may include:

Ministry news and updates.
Information about events, programs, and opportunities to participate.
Responses to inquiries or requests.
Requested reminders and notifications.
Other ministry-related communications covered by your consent.

These messages are sent for Focus on Jesus Ministries' own ministry purposes.

B. Church Harbor Verification and Access Codes

Focus on Jesus Ministries may send one-time SMS access codes and security verification messages to users of Church Harbor.

These messages may be used for purposes such as:

Verifying a mobile phone number.
Confirming a new account or account-related action.
Signing in or accessing an account.
Verifying a user's identity.
Account recovery or additional security verification.

These messages are available to Church Harbor users regardless of whether they are connected to a church.

A user may receive an authentication message from Focus on Jesus Ministries whether they are using Church Harbor independently or have voluntarily connected their account to a church.

Such messages are strictly related to account access, identity verification, or security.

They are not church communications, and they do not authorize any associated church to contact the recipient.

Receiving a verification or access code does not enroll you in ministry updates, promotional messages, or any recurring SMS subscription.

Verification messages will not contain unrelated promotional content.

When you choose an SMS verification option, we disclose that a text message will be sent to the phone number you provide or have associated with your account, and obtain and document any consent required for that message.

We use your phone number and related verification information only as necessary to deliver the code, complete the verification, protect your account, maintain appropriate security records, and satisfy applicable legal obligations.

C. SMS Consent

We distinguish between consent for ministry communications and consent for account verification.

For optional ministry communications:

We obtain appropriate consent before sending messages.
Consent to promotional or recurring messages is voluntary.
Consent to receive promotional text messages is not a condition of creating a Church Harbor account, making a donation, or using unrelated services.
We obtain separate marketing consent where required.
Providing a mobile number does not automatically enroll you in promotional SMS communications.

For one-time verification messages:

We obtain appropriate consent through the relevant verification or authentication process.
Consent relates to the verification purpose presented to you.
A request for an access or verification code does not constitute consent to receive promotional or recurring ministry communications.
Verification consent is not shared with or transferred to any church or other organization.

We maintain appropriate records of consent and messaging preferences.

D. Protection of Mobile Information

We do not sell, rent, or share your mobile phone number, SMS opt-in information, or text messaging consent with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.

We do not sell or share your SMS opt-in data or personal information with third parties for marketing purposes.

All other categories of information sharing described in this Privacy Policy exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent. This information will not be shared with third parties for their own marketing or promotional purposes.

We may disclose information to telecommunications carriers and messaging service providers solely as needed to deliver messages, administer the service, maintain compliance, and honor your messaging choices, or when disclosure is required by law.

We do not transfer SMS messaging consent to churches, ministry partners, or unrelated organizations.

E. Message Frequency and Charges

For ministry communications, message frequency varies according to the program and communications you have agreed to receive. Expected frequency will be disclosed when you subscribe.

For Church Harbor verification and one-time access codes, messages are sent as needed for the authentication or verification process. The number of messages depends on the verification actions requested and any necessary retries.

Verification messages do not establish a recurring messaging subscription.

Standard message and data rates may apply.

F. Opting Out and Getting Help

You may opt out of recurring SMS ministry communications at any time by replying STOP to a message from the applicable messaging program.

For assistance, reply HELP or contact Focus on Jesus Ministries using the details at the end of this policy.

After opting out, you may receive a final confirmation message. We will stop sending recurring messages from that program unless you choose to subscribe again.

For Church Harbor verification messages, you can avoid additional optional verification texts by not requesting further SMS codes. Opting out of SMS may affect your ability to receive verification codes through that number, and you may need to use another supported account-access or verification method.

We maintain appropriate records of messaging consent and opt-out requests to respect your choices and demonstrate compliance.

8. Cookies, Analytics, and Device Storage

Our websites and applications may use cookies, local storage, and similar technologies to:

Keep you signed in and maintain secure sessions.
Remember your settings and preferences.
Preserve previously loaded content where permitted.
Understand technical performance and diagnose errors.
Produce anonymous statistical information about general service usage.
Improve our websites and applications.

Some technologies are essential for our services to function properly.

When legally required, we obtain your consent before using nonessential cookies or similar tracking technologies. You can manage certain preferences through available consent controls, browser settings, or device settings.

Disabling essential storage technologies may affect some functionality.

We do not use private prayers, journals, or spiritual reflections for cross-site advertising or advertising-based profiling.

9. Data Storage, Security, and International Transfers

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect personal information from unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.

These measures include appropriate access restrictions, secure communications, and operational safeguards.

For private writing and inferred themes, we seek to minimise access by using protective architecture, encryption, restricted system permissions and separation of account identity from analysis data. Our goal is to avoid any need for our staff to read these records; however, actual access limitations depend on the technical safeguards implemented for each feature.

No internet service or electronic storage system can guarantee absolute security.

International Data Transfers

Focus on Jesus Ministries is based in the United States. Your information may be processed or stored in the United States and other countries where our authorized service providers operate.

For transfers subject to the EU GDPR or UK GDPR, we use legally recognized transfer mechanisms and appropriate safeguards where required. Depending on the circumstances, these may include applicable adequacy arrangements, standard contractual clauses, and approved UK international transfer safeguards.

You may contact us to request information about the safeguards applicable to your personal information.

10. How Long We Keep Information

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy or to meet applicable legal obligations.

In general:

Account information: Retained while your account is active and for a limited period afterward when necessary for security, legal obligations, or legitimate operational purposes.
Private journals, prayers, and Bible annotations: Retained while you choose to maintain them in your account, unless deletion is requested or otherwise required.
Reading activity and preferences: Retained as necessary to provide your saved history, progress, and personalized features.
Optional inferred themes: Retained for personalised suggestions while you participate in the feature, or until you withdraw consent or request eligible deletion, subject to applicable exceptions.
Analysis inputs and intermediate results: Minimized and deleted when no longer needed for the authorised analysis; any external provider is subject to contractual retention restrictions.
Verification and security records: Retained as necessary to maintain account security, investigate unauthorized access, document verification activity, and meet applicable obligations.
Communications and support records: Retained as reasonably necessary to address requests, maintain service records, and resolve disputes.
SMS consent records: Retained as necessary to honor opt-out choices, maintain compliance records, and address legal obligations.
Donation and financial records: Retained for applicable tax, accounting, and regulatory requirements.
Technical and security records: Retained for reasonable periods based on security, troubleshooting, and operational needs.

Anonymous statistics that no longer identify or reasonably permit identification of individuals may be retained for longer periods for research, historical comparisons, and ministry improvement.

If you delete your account or request deletion, we will delete or anonymize eligible personal information within a reasonable period, subject to applicable legal requirements and legitimate exceptions.

Some information may remain temporarily in restricted backups until routine expiration. Information previously shared with another person or independently controlled by another organization may not be removable from their systems through deletion of your Church Harbor account.

11. Your Privacy Rights and Choices

We respect your ability to understand and control how your personal information is used.

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the right to:

Access: Request a copy of personal information we hold about you.
Correct: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information.
Delete: Request removal of your personal information, subject to applicable exceptions.
Restrict: Request that we limit certain processing activities.
Object: Object to processing based on legitimate interests and to direct marketing.
Export: Request your eligible personal information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Withdraw consent: Withdraw previously provided consent where our processing relies on it.
Manage communications: Unsubscribe from optional emails and text messages.

You have the right to object at any time to the processing of your personal information for direct marketing.

You can manage certain information and preferences directly through your account where those controls are available.

If AI-generated themes are associated with your account, you may request access to them and seek correction or deletion under applicable law even if the themes are not normally displayed in the app. You may also withdraw consent for optional AI theme analysis or contributing eligible theme data to aggregate research. Withdrawal cannot reverse the publication of statistics that were already effectively anonymised.

For other requests, contact us using the details below. We may need to verify your identity before responding.

We respond to verified privacy requests within the timeframes required by applicable law, generally within one month for EU and UK GDPR requests, subject to permitted extensions.

Once information has been genuinely anonymized so that it can no longer reasonably be linked to an individual, it is no longer identifiable personal information and cannot ordinarily be retrieved or deleted for a particular person.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising applicable privacy rights.

Complaints

If you believe we have handled your information improperly, we encourage you to contact us so we can address your concerns.

If you are located in the European Economic Area, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with an applicable data protection supervisory authority.

If you are in the United Kingdom, you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

12. Children's Privacy

We care about protecting children and young people who use our services.

Publicly available Bible content may be accessed without creating an account.

Account registration and features that collect personal information are intended for users aged 13 or older, subject to any higher age or parental authorization requirements under applicable law.

Optional AI analysis of sensitive private writing requires additional age-appropriate safeguards. We will not enable such profiling for children where it would be unlawful or where required parental authorisation and safeguards are absent.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children in violation of applicable privacy laws, including requirements for parental consent.

If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child without legally required authorization, we will take appropriate steps to delete or restrict that information.

Parents and guardians may contact us about their child's information using the contact details below.

13. Third-Party Websites and Services

Our websites and applications may contain links to external websites, Bible resources, ministry organizations, church services, payment providers, or other third-party services.

Those services may have their own privacy policies and practices. We encourage you to review them before providing personal information.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of independently operated third-party websites and services.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as our services develop or applicable laws change.

When we make changes, we will update the effective date shown at the beginning of this policy.

If a change materially affects how we handle your personal information, we will provide additional notice where required by law.

We will obtain additional consent when legally required before using your information for a new purpose.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, your personal information, or your privacy rights, please contact:

Focus on Jesus Ministries
Privacy Inquiries
PO Box 13285
Chandler, AZ 85248
United States

Website: www.focusonjesusministries.com

Privacy Email: privacy@focusonjesusministries.com

We are committed to treating your information with care, dignity, and respect.