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ChurchPathways Terms of Service

Effective date: 22 July 2026

Last updated: 22 July 2026

Important information

These Terms of Service (the Terms) govern access to and use of the ChurchPathways website, church workspaces, participant journeys, leader tools, demonstrations, trials, subscriptions, emails and related services (together, the Service).

ChurchPathways is operated by CHURCHPATHWAYS LTD, trading as ChurchPathways (ChurchPathways, we, us or our), of 128 City Road, London, UK, EC1V 2NX, company number 17323299.

By creating an account, joining a church workspace, accepting an invitation, starting a trial, purchasing a subscription, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you use the Service for a church, charity, ministry or other organisation, you confirm that you have authority to accept these Terms on its behalf.

These Terms are designed for a business-to-business service supplied to churches and similar organisations. They should be read with our Privacy Notice, Cookie Policy, Acceptable Use Policy and, where a church uses the Service to process participant personal data, the applicable Data Processing Agreement (DPA).

1. What ChurchPathways provides

ChurchPathways is a digital platform that helps churches and ministry organisations create and deliver guided pathways for discipleship, membership, training, classes, cohorts and ministry development. Depending on the plan and configuration, the Service may allow authorised users to:

  • create, edit, clone, activate and assign pathways;
  • invite participants or approve access requests;
  • provide daily, weekly or session-based teaching, Scripture, reflection prompts, action steps and optional media;
  • record participant progress and pathway completion;
  • allow participants to keep reflections private or deliberately share selected thoughts with authorised church leaders;
  • allow leaders to respond to shared thoughts, record internal notes and mark follow-up needs;
  • view dashboards, reports, engagement signals and pathway trends; and
  • manage church users, roles, subscriptions, billing and support.

ChurchPathways provides structure and visibility. It does not replace pastoral relationships, spiritual discernment, safeguarding procedures, counselling, professional advice or emergency services. It does not measure a person's faith, holiness, spiritual maturity or relationship with God.

2. The parties and account roles

2.1 Church Customer

The Church Customer is the church, charity, ministry, network or other organisation that creates or controls a ChurchPathways workspace or purchases a subscription. The Church Customer is responsible for its workspace, pathways, invited users, participant communications and ministry use of the Service.

2.2 Authorised church users

A Church Customer may grant access to owners, administrators, leaders and read-only or viewer roles. Permissions vary by role, plan and product configuration. The Church Customer must:

  • give access only to people who need it for an authorised purpose;
  • use the least privileged role appropriate to each person;
  • review access regularly;
  • promptly remove or change access when a person changes role or leaves; and
  • ensure users understand confidentiality, data protection and safeguarding duties.

2.3 Participants

A Participant is an adult invited, assigned or approved by a Church Customer to use a pathway. Participants are responsible for their account security and for deciding whether to keep a reflection private or share a thought where the Service provides that choice.

2.4 ChurchPathways personnel

ChurchPathways personnel do not act as the Church Customer's pastors, counsellors or safeguarding investigators. Access by our personnel to workspace content is restricted and should occur only where reasonably necessary for support, security, maintenance, legal compliance or another purpose explained in our Privacy Notice or DPA.

3. Eligibility and adult-only launch

The Service is currently intended for people aged 18 or over. A Church Customer must not invite, register or knowingly permit anyone under 18 to use the Service unless ChurchPathways has first agreed in writing to a separate children-and-young-people deployment with appropriate product controls, notices, consents, risk assessment and safeguarding arrangements.

You must have legal capacity to agree to these Terms. A person creating or administering a Church Customer account confirms that they are authorised by that organisation.

4. Account registration and security

Users must provide accurate information and keep it current. Accounts may use email/password authentication, secure sign-in links or other approved authentication methods.

You must:

  • keep login credentials and sign-in links confidential;
  • use an email account you control;
  • not share an individual account with another person;
  • promptly notify us of suspected unauthorised access;
  • use reasonable device and browser security; and
  • sign out of shared devices.

The Church Customer is responsible for activity carried out through its authorised accounts unless caused by our breach of these Terms or applicable law.

5. Trials, free plans and demonstrations

5.1 Demonstrations

Demonstration environments may contain fictional or sample data and may not save changes. They are provided only to preview the Service. Do not enter real personal, confidential, pastoral or safeguarding information into a demonstration environment.

5.2 Starter or free access

We may provide a free or limited plan with stated limits. Features, capacity and availability may differ from paid plans. We may modify a free plan on reasonable notice, but we will not remove access to a Church Customer's data without giving a reasonable opportunity to export or retrieve it where practicable.

5.3 Growth trial

Where offered, the Growth trial currently lasts 14 days and does not require a payment card. Starting the trial does not itself authorise a charge. A paid subscription begins only when an authorised Church Customer completes an express checkout or other purchase process.

Trials are intended for genuine evaluation. We may refuse, limit or end repeated, abusive or fraudulent trials.

5.4 Pilot or beta features

Some features may be described as pilot, beta, preview, early access or coming soon. Such features may change, contain defects or be withdrawn. We will identify material limitations where reasonably practicable. A pilot is not a promise that a feature will become generally available.

6. Subscriptions, fees and payment

Paid plans, limits, billing periods and prices are shown on the website, order form or checkout presented at the time of purchase. Unless stated otherwise, prices exclude VAT and similar taxes.

Payments are processed through Stripe or another disclosed payment provider. ChurchPathways does not normally receive full payment-card details.

A subscription renews for the selected monthly or annual billing period until cancelled, unless the order states otherwise. The Church Customer authorises the payment provider to collect recurring charges once it completes checkout.

An owner or authorised administrator may manage or cancel billing through the billing area or secure payment-provider portal. Cancellation normally takes effect at the end of the current paid period. Fees already paid are non-refundable except where:

  • the order or applicable law requires a refund;
  • we materially fail to provide the purchased Service and do not remedy the failure within a reasonable period after notice; or
  • we expressly agree otherwise.

We may change prices for a future renewal period by giving reasonable advance notice. We may suspend paid features for overdue payments after reasonable notice, while taking reasonable steps to preserve access to data and allow resolution.

7. Plan limits and fair use

Each plan may limit active pathways, participants, leaders, storage, reports, email volume or other resources. The Church Customer must not deliberately evade limits by creating duplicate workspaces or accounts.

Where usage materially exceeds the purchased plan or creates unreasonable operational cost, we may ask the Church Customer to upgrade, reduce usage or agree a suitable enterprise arrangement before restricting the affected feature.

8. Church content and participant content

8.1 Ownership

As between the parties, the Church Customer and its users retain ownership of pathway materials, logos, teaching content, reflections, shared thoughts, responses, notes and other content they submit to the Service (Customer Content). ChurchPathways does not claim ownership of Customer Content.

8.2 Licence to operate the Service

The Church Customer and each user grant ChurchPathways a limited, non-exclusive licence to host, copy, transmit, display, format, back up and otherwise process Customer Content only as necessary to provide, secure, support and improve the Service, comply with law, and perform the DPA.

8.3 Permissions and third-party materials

The Church Customer must ensure it has the rights and permissions needed to upload and use its content, including Bible translations, videos, images, music, course materials and third-party resources. ChurchPathways may remove or restrict content where we reasonably believe it infringes rights or creates legal, security or safeguarding risk.

8.4 Feedback

If you provide suggestions or product feedback, we may use them without restriction or payment, provided we do not disclose confidential Customer Content or identify an individual without permission.

9. Reflection privacy and leader visibility

ChurchPathways is designed to distinguish between participant content kept private and content deliberately shared with leaders.

  • A private reflection is not displayed to church leaders through the ordinary leader interface unless the participant later chooses to share it or another clearly disclosed rule applies.
  • A shared thought is visible to authorised church users with the relevant permissions and may receive a leader response.
  • Progress, pathway assignment, completion status and engagement signals may be visible to authorised church users even where the underlying private reflection is not.
  • Leader-only notes and follow-up indicators may be visible to authorised church users and not ordinarily displayed to participants in the product interface.

No technical system can provide absolute confidentiality. Data may also be accessed or disclosed where reasonably necessary for technical support, security, legal obligations, data protection rights, or urgent safeguarding or safety concerns, as explained in the Privacy Notice and DPA.

A Church Customer must clearly explain its own use of participant information, who its authorised leaders are, how follow-up works, and how participants can raise concerns or exercise data rights.

10. Data protection roles

For personal data processed within a Church Customer's workspace for that church's discipleship and ministry purposes, the Church Customer will normally determine the purposes and essential means of processing and will normally act as controller. ChurchPathways will normally act as processor on the Church Customer's documented instructions.

ChurchPathways acts as an independent controller for certain business purposes, including account administration, billing, product security, fraud prevention, support records, website enquiries, the Discipleship Score, trial administration, legal compliance and service-level analytics, as described in the Privacy Notice.

The parties' controller-processor obligations must be governed by a DPA where required. The Church Customer must:

  • identify and document a lawful basis under Article 6 UK GDPR;
  • identify and document an Article 9 condition where religious belief or other special-category data is processed;
  • give participants an appropriate privacy notice;
  • carry out any required legitimate interests assessment, appropriate policy document, DPIA or DPIA screening;
  • respond to data-subject requests and complaints, with our reasonable assistance where required;
  • use only necessary and proportionate data; and
  • give us lawful, documented processing instructions.

11. Safeguarding and pastoral boundaries

11.1 Church responsibility

The Church Customer remains solely responsible for pastoral care, safeguarding governance and responding to content submitted by its participants. Before live participant use, the Church Customer must:

  • maintain an appropriate safeguarding policy and incident procedure;
  • identify a safeguarding lead or designated safeguarding person;
  • train authorised leaders for their roles;
  • decide when and how shared content is reviewed;
  • establish escalation routes for concerns, allegations, disclosures or immediate risk;
  • follow applicable law, denominational requirements and statutory guidance; and
  • keep appropriate safeguarding records outside or within the Service only where lawful, necessary and appropriately protected.

11.2 Not an emergency or crisis service

The Service must not be used as an emergency, crisis-reporting, counselling, abuse-recovery, medical, mental-health or suicide-intervention service. It is not continuously monitored and does not guarantee that a leader will read or respond to content within any period.

Anyone in immediate danger or needing urgent assistance should contact local emergency services. In the United Kingdom, call 999 or 112.

11.3 Disclosures and escalation

ChurchPathways does not undertake to investigate allegations, determine whether they are true, provide pastoral responses or replace the Church Customer's safeguarding process. If we become aware of content indicating a credible and imminent risk of serious harm, abuse, exploitation or unlawful activity, we may preserve relevant information and disclose it to the Church Customer's safeguarding contact, emergency services, regulators or law-enforcement authorities where we reasonably believe this is lawful and necessary.

11.4 Prohibited first-use pathways

Unless separately agreed in writing with appropriate safeguards, Church Customers must not use the Service for pathways primarily focused on counselling, trauma treatment, abuse recovery, crisis intervention, self-harm management or similar high-risk support.

12. Acceptable use

All use of the Service must comply with our Acceptable Use Policy, which forms part of these Terms. In particular, users must not misuse the Service, compromise security, coerce participants to share private reflections, use progress as a substitute for pastoral judgement, or upload unlawful, abusive or harmful content.

13. Support and communications

We may send operational communications needed to provide the Service, including authentication messages, invitations, security notices, trial guidance, pathway notifications, billing messages and service updates.

Marketing messages will be sent only where permitted by law and will include an appropriate way to opt out. Opting out of marketing does not prevent essential service communications.

Support is provided through the channels and service levels described for the relevant plan. Standard support does not include curriculum writing, pastoral facilitation, legal advice, safeguarding investigation or unlimited implementation consultancy.

14. Service availability, maintenance and change

We aim to provide a reliable Service but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free availability. We may carry out maintenance, security work, upgrades or emergency changes. We will try to give advance notice of planned material downtime where reasonably practicable.

We may change the Service to improve security, performance, accessibility, compliance or functionality. We will not materially remove a core paid feature during a current billing period without a reasonable substitute, notice or proportionate remedy, except where immediate action is needed for security or law.

15. Security

We use technical and organisational measures intended to protect the Service and personal data. These may include role-based access, authentication controls, encryption in transit, provider security controls, logging, backups and incident procedures.

Security is shared. Church Customers and users must follow the account-security requirements in these Terms and promptly report suspected incidents to support@churchpathways.com.

No service is completely secure. The Church Customer must not use ChurchPathways as the sole repository for information that must be preserved under a safeguarding, employment, legal or records-management obligation unless it has confirmed the Service and retention arrangements are suitable.

16. Third-party services

The Service relies on third-party providers for hosting, database, authentication, email, forms, automation, payment processing and related functions. Current providers may include Supabase, Vercel, Resend, Stripe, Tally and Make. Optional videos or links may use third-party media platforms selected by the Church Customer.

Third-party services may have their own terms and privacy notices. We remain responsible for our obligations under these Terms and the DPA, but we are not responsible for a third-party service chosen or configured independently by the Church Customer.

17. Intellectual property in ChurchPathways

ChurchPathways and its licensors own the Service, software, interface, design system, trademarks, documentation, starter pathway structures and other materials supplied by us, excluding Customer Content.

Subject to these Terms and payment of applicable fees, we grant the Church Customer a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right for its authorised users to access and use the Service for its internal church or ministry purposes during the applicable plan or trial.

You must not:

  • copy, sell, licence or commercially exploit the Service except as expressly permitted;
  • reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive source code except to the limited extent the law cannot prohibit it;
  • remove branding, copyright or proprietary notices;
  • use our trademarks without permission; or
  • use the Service to build or train a competing product through automated extraction or systematic copying.

18. Confidentiality

Each party may receive non-public information from the other. The receiving party must protect that information with reasonable care and use it only for the relationship contemplated by these Terms.

Confidentiality does not apply to information that is public through no breach, already lawfully known, independently developed, or lawfully received from a third party. A party may disclose confidential information where required by law, after giving notice where legally permitted.

Participant reflections, shared thoughts, leader notes, safeguarding-related information and workspace reports should be treated as confidential and accessed only on a need-to-know basis.

19. Suspension and removal

We may suspend or restrict an account or content where reasonably necessary to:

  • prevent security threats, fraud or unlawful activity;
  • protect users or third parties from harm;
  • investigate a material breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy;
  • comply with law, court order or regulator instruction;
  • address overdue payment; or
  • protect the stability of the Service.

Where appropriate, we will notify the Church Customer and allow a reasonable opportunity to remedy the issue. We may act immediately where delay could create risk.

20. Termination and data return

The Church Customer may terminate by cancelling its subscription and requesting closure of the workspace. We may terminate for material breach that is not remedied within a reasonable notice period, or immediately for serious illegality, security abuse or safeguarding risk.

On termination:

  • the right to use paid features ends at the effective termination date;
  • the Church Customer remains responsible for accrued fees;
  • we will make Customer Content available for export or retrieval for the period stated in the DPA or Privacy Notice, where technically and legally practicable;
  • we will delete or return processor data in accordance with the DPA, subject to legal retention and secure backup cycles; and
  • provisions intended to survive, including payment, confidentiality, intellectual property, liability and dispute clauses, will continue.

The Church Customer should export information it is legally required to retain before closure.

21. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

  • the Service is provided on an "as available" basis;
  • engagement signals and reports are informational and may be incomplete or affected by user behaviour, connectivity or configuration;
  • ChurchPathways does not guarantee participant engagement, completion, spiritual growth, pastoral outcomes or safeguarding detection;
  • starter pathways and product guidance are educational resources, not theological, legal, medical, therapeutic or safeguarding advice; and
  • the Church Customer remains responsible for reviewing all pathway content for its theology, context, accessibility, suitability and lawful use.

Nothing in these Terms excludes rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded.

22. Liability

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to that:

  • neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of anticipated savings, loss of goodwill or loss of profits, except to the extent such loss forms part of a direct third-party claim covered by an express indemnity;
  • ChurchPathways is not liable for pastoral decisions, safeguarding failures, unlawful content or access permissions controlled by the Church Customer;
  • ChurchPathways is not liable for loss caused by the Church Customer's failure to maintain its own legally required records or exports; and
  • ChurchPathways' total aggregate liability arising out of the Service in any 12-month period will not exceed the greater of £500 and the fees paid or payable by the Church Customer for the Service in that period.

The liability wording in this section is intended for a business customer and requires legal review for the final contracting model.

23. Indemnity

The Church Customer will indemnify ChurchPathways against reasonable third-party claims, losses and costs arising from:

  • Customer Content that infringes intellectual-property or privacy rights;
  • the Church Customer's unlawful instructions or use of the Service;
  • its failure to obtain required permissions, notices or lawful bases; or
  • its material breach of safeguarding, confidentiality or acceptable-use obligations,

except to the extent the claim was caused by ChurchPathways' breach, negligence or unlawful conduct.

24. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms to reflect legal, security, product or business changes. We will post the updated version and change the "Last updated" date. For material changes affecting paid customers, we will provide reasonable notice by email or in-product message. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance, but a Church Customer may cancel before a materially adverse change takes effect.

25. Notices

Operational notices may be sent to the account email or displayed in the Service. Legal notices to ChurchPathways should be sent to support@churchpathways.com and 128 City Road, London, UK, EC1V 2NX.

26. General

Neither party may assign these Terms without the other's consent, except that ChurchPathways may assign them as part of a merger, reorganisation, financing or sale of all or substantially all of the relevant business, provided the successor assumes the obligations.

ChurchPathways may use subcontractors and subprocessors, remaining responsible as required by these Terms and the DPA.

Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary and the remainder continues. These Terms, the applicable order, the DPA, Privacy Notice and Acceptable Use Policy form the entire agreement concerning the Service. If there is a conflict, the DPA controls for processor obligations, the order controls for commercial terms, and these Terms control otherwise.

Nothing creates a partnership, employment, agency or pastoral relationship between ChurchPathways and the Church Customer's users.

27. Governing law and disputes

These Terms and any non-contractual obligations are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, unless mandatory law requires otherwise.

Before commencing proceedings, the parties will try in good faith to resolve the dispute through senior representatives. This does not prevent either party seeking urgent injunctive or protective relief.

28. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to:

ChurchPathways CHURCHPATHWAYS LTD 128 City Road, London, UK, EC1V 2NX Email: support@churchpathways.com