Last updated 10 September 2026
Practical Gospel is a scripture study app for families. This page explains exactly what it stores, what it never collects, and what other people can see. It is written to be read, not to be survived.
The short version. Your studies, notes and highlights are yours. They live on your device and sync to your own account so you can use them on your other devices. There is no advertising and nothing is ever sold or shared with advertisers. We do measure which features get used, so we know what to build next — never what you write, and you can turn it off in the app. The only things other people see are the things you deliberately post or share.
Practical Gospel is an independent app. It is not an official product of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Contact: cherrishbootcamp@gmail.com.
Most of the app works with no network at all, because most of it never leaves your device. The following are held in your browser's or app's local storage:
scripture-study:autosave)Clearing your browser data, or uninstalling the app, deletes all of this from that device.
If you sign in, the following is stored in Google Firebase (Firestore) under your account so it can follow you between devices:
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Your email address and display name | To sign you in and to show who you are to friends you add |
| Your username | So people can find you and tag you. It is public to signed-in users and cannot be changed once chosen |
| Your library — studies, notes, highlights, tool results | So the same work is on your phone and your computer |
| Friend requests and friendships | To connect you with people you choose |
| Games in progress with friends | Both players need to see the same board |
| Posts, comments and likes you make | They are the feature |
| Notification tokens, if you allow notifications | To tell you it is your turn. Removed when the token stops working |
| Subscription status, if you subscribe | To know what your account may use |
| Messages you send us through Contact us, with your email address | So we can read what you wrote and reply to you. Only we can read these; they are never shown to other users |
| How you first arrived — the link you followed, the site that linked to you, and your answer to “How did you hear about us?” if you gave one | So we know which of the things we make actually help people find the app. Written once, when you first sign in, and never updated afterwards. Only we can read it; it is never shown to other users. The answer is optional and the question can be skipped |
Your email address is also stored in a lookup index so that a friend who already knows your address can find your account. That index answers only a direct question — nobody can list it, download it, or browse other people's addresses.
This is the part worth reading twice, because it is easy to assume otherwise.
One thing worth stating plainly: your username and display name are listable by anybody signed in. That is what makes the friend search work as you type rather than needing somebody’s exact handle, and both of those appear on every post, comment and game board already — but it does mean the member list can be browsed, not only searched. Your email address cannot: it is matched whole or not at all, so it can be confirmed but never harvested.
This app is built for families to use together, and children are expected to use it alongside a parent.
If subscriptions are enabled and you choose to subscribe, payment is handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. What we store is whether your subscription is active and when it renews.
If you allow them, a notification token for that device is stored so the app can tell you when it is your turn in a game. Notifications are only ever sent for something you took part in. You can turn them off in your device or browser settings at any time; dead tokens are deleted automatically.
If you use the invite screen on the phone app and grant contacts permission, your contacts are read on the device, into memory, for that screen only. They are never uploaded, never stored, and never sent anywhere. Invitations open a pre-filled draft in your own messaging app, which you send yourself.
We use Google Analytics to see which parts of the app people actually use. This is new: for a long time this page said there was no analytics at all, and that was true. We changed it because we could not tell which features were worth improving and which nobody had ever opened.
What is sent: which screen you are on (“the Come, Follow Me week”, “a study”, “a chapter”), which tool or game you opened, when something is saved and what kind it was, and when you are shown an upgrade screen and which feature prompted it. Alongside that, Google records the ordinary things any website sees: rough location from your IP address, your device and browser, and how you arrived.
What is never sent:
You can turn it off. Account › Notifications › Help improve the app. It is per device, it takes effect immediately, and nothing else about the app changes. If your browser sends a “do not track” or blocks analytics, that works too — the app does not fall back to anything else.
Google Analytics is a processor for this data and their own privacy terms apply to it. We have advertising features, ad personalisation and data sharing for advertising switched off.
Data is stored on Google Cloud infrastructure, which may process it in the United States and other countries where Google operates.
If you ask for the weekly digest — from the app, the website or the blog — we store your email address, when you asked, and whether you confirmed. It is double opt-in: nothing is sent until you tap the confirmation link in the first email. Every digest carries an unsubscribe link, and one tap ends it. The address is used for the digest and for nothing else: it is never sold, shared, or matched against anything you do in the app. If you subscribe while signed in, the app remembers only that you did, so the switch in your account menu shows the right state.
Published Study It Out material — the weekly essay, episode and sources — may also be posted to our own YouTube, Facebook and Instagram accounts. It is written by us and never contains anything a user wrote.
Your library is kept for as long as your account exists. You can:
One thing is deliberately kept when an account is deleted: records of payments — what was charged, refunded, or paid out in affiliate commission — for as long as tax and accounting rules require. Those hold an account number, not your name, your address or anything you wrote. Everything else goes, including comments you left on other people’s posts.
What cannot be pulled back is what somebody else already has: a study another person saved into their own library, or a public link they copied before you deleted it, belongs to their account in the same way a forwarded message does.
Deleting a post removes it, and revokes any public link made from it. Copies that another user has already saved into their own library belong to their account, in the same way a forwarded message does.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights over your personal data — to access, correct, export, delete or object to its use. Contact us and we will honour them.
Two things we would rather say plainly than let you assume:
Signing in decides whose study is whose; it is not a vault. The scripture text and the app's own data are downloaded to your device so it works offline, and your notes are stored in your own browser. Anyone with access to your unlocked device can read them.
Game scores and boards are not refereed. There is no server checking play, so a determined player with developer tools could see or change more than the game intends. It is a family scripture game, and it is built on trust.
If what the app stores changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top is updated. Material changes will be announced in the app.