Privacy Policy

Hope Church (“we”, “us”) runs hopejc.org and the Hope Church app for iPhone and Android. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what you can do about it. We have tried to write it in plain English rather than legal boilerplate.

The short version: we collect very little, we do not sell anything about you, there is no advertising anywhere in our app or on our website, and you can delete your account and everything in it yourself, at any time.

When you use the website

Our website records anonymous, aggregate visit statistics — which pages are opened, roughly where in the world visitors are, and what kind of device they used. It is counted in aggregate and is not tied to a name, an email address, or a profile. We use it to understand which pages are useful.

We do not use advertising cookies or tracking pixels, and we do not share website visitors with advertisers.

When you fill out a form — a connect card, prayer request, event registration or the contact form — we collect what you type: usually your name, email address, phone number, and whatever you choose to tell us. Those forms are hosted by Planning Center, our church management system.

When you use the app

You do not need an account to use most of the app. Messages, events, the Bible, giving and everything else work without signing in.

If you create an account (with an email address, Sign in with Apple, or Google), we store:

• your email address, and the name and profile photo you choose to add;
• sermon notes you write;
• your place in a message you are part-way through;
• verses you highlight and notes you write in the Bible reader.

That is stored so it follows you between your phone and any other device you sign in on. It belongs to you. Nobody else who uses the app can see it, and we do not read it to target anything at you.

Your church record. If the email on your account is confirmed and matches your record in Planning Center, our church database, we link the two. That lets our staff see which app account is yours and send a notification to a group or team you are part of. Deleting your account removes the link.

Notifications. If you turn on notifications, your device gives us a notification token so we can send announcements to your phone. The token identifies the app on that device. If you are signed in, we also note which account the device belongs to and the name on that account, so notifications meant for you reach you and our staff can see who has notifications turned on. You choose which kinds of notification you get in the app’s notification settings. With the token the app sends a second random identifier, used only to recognise when your phone has been given a new token so the same notification is not sent to it twice. On an iPhone it stays on the phone even if the app is deleted and installed again. Deleting your account removes all of this, including that identifier.

How the app is used. The app sends us basic usage information: a random identifier created when the app is installed, the app version, and which screens and messages get opened. This tells us things like how many people listened to a message — never who listened to what as a matter of record. The random identifier is not your device’s advertising ID, and before we store it, it is scrambled with a secret key. We keep that scrambled identifier with each day the app is opened, which is how we count how many people use it; it is not connected to your name or your account. We do not have, and do not use, any advertising identifier.

Searches you type in the app are sent to our own server to find matching messages and Bible passages. They are not stored against you or your account.

Giving

Giving is handled by Planning Center, through their Church Center service. Card and bank details are entered on Planning Center’s own secure pages — they never pass through our app, our website or our servers, and we never see or store them. Planning Center’s privacy policy covers that part.

Who else is involved

We use a small number of services to run all of this. They process information on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes:

• Planning Center — giving, event registrations, groups, forms, and our church records.
• Google Firebase — app accounts, profile photos, the storage that syncs your notes and highlights, and notification delivery.
• Apple — notifications to iPhones.
• Cloudflare — hosts our sermon library, audio, and app data.
• Vercel — hosts this website.
• YouTube — some videos are played in the app and on the site through YouTube’s player, which is subject to Google’s privacy policy.

What we never do

• We do not sell, rent or trade your information.
• We do not show advertising, and we do not share anything with advertisers.
• We do not track you across other companies’ apps or websites.

Deleting your account and your information

You can delete your account, and everything stored with it, from inside the app: tap the person icon at the top right of the Home screen, scroll down, and choose Delete account. It removes your notes, saved places, Bible highlights and profile, and it cannot be undone.

If you no longer have the app installed, you can ask us to delete your account here: hopejc.org/delete-account.

We act on deletion requests within 30 days. Anonymous, aggregated counts that cannot be linked to you — for example “180 people listened to this message” — remain, because there is nothing in them to identify.

Children

The app is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly create accounts for them. Information about children who attend our programmes — Hope Kids check-in, student ministry registration — is provided by a parent or guardian, is held in Planning Center, and is used only for the safety and care of your child while they are with us. Access is limited to the volunteers and staff serving that ministry, and it is not part of the app’s account system.

Email and texts

You can unsubscribe from any email at any time using the link at the bottom of the message, or by replying STOP to a text. We’ll still reach out personally about things you’ve specifically asked us about — a prayer request, a visit, a baptism.

Cookies

This site uses small data files (cookies) to remember your preferences, such as light or dark mode and the last page you viewed. You can disable cookies in your browser settings; the site will still work, but a few preferences may not be remembered between visits.

Sermon video and YouTube

We publish our sermons to our own YouTube channel using a media system we run ourselves. That system uses YouTube API Services to upload our videos and to confirm which channel it is connected to. Our use of those features is also covered by the YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.

Our system stores an authorization token for our own channel, the channel’s name, and the video ID of each sermon we upload. It does not read viewer data, watch history, comments, or analytics, and it has no access to any channel other than ours.

Our staff can disconnect the channel at any time inside our media system, or revoke access directly at Google’s permissions page. Revoking access deletes the stored token and stops any future uploads; sermons already on YouTube stay there until we remove them.

Your choices

You can ask us at any time to see, update, or delete the information we hold about you. Email info@hopejc.org and we’ll take care of it.

Changes

If we change how any of this works, we will update this page and change the date at the top.

Questions

If you have any questions about this policy or how your information is handled, please reach out:

Hope Church
5034 Bobby Hicks Hwy
Johnson City, TN 37615
(423) 207-3341
info@hopejc.org