Epworth Software Solutions

Congregant Privacy Policy & Covenant

Effective Date: June 6, 2026

Welcome to Epworth CMS, a church management software platform developed by Epworth Software Solutions, LLC (“Epworth,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). We provide the digital tools that help your local church congregation run its daily ministry, communicate with members, and securely manage church records.

Because we value the trust you place in your local church and in our platform, we do not view this document as a mere legal formality. To us, it is a Covenant—a solemn promise regarding how your personal information is handled, protected, and honored within our systems.

1. Our Core Covenant Commitments

We believe your personal, financial, and spiritual data belongs strictly within the context of your faith community. Therefore, Epworth binds itself to the following foundational rules:

  • Your data will never be sold. We do not monetize your information under any circumstances.
  • No commercial or third-party marketing. We will never use your data to market commercial goods or third-party services. The platform will only be used to distribute communication, announcements, and events directly related to your local church or connectional church bodies.
  • No invasive tracking. We use cookies strictly for secure authentication purposes (to keep you securely logged into your member portal). We do not use tracking cookies, and your browsing data is never shared with or sent to third parties.

2. The Data We Collect and Hold

To support your church’s daily operations, the software stores specific, limited elements of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) inputted by you or your church administrators. This is limited to:

  • Full Name
  • Date of Birth
  • Physical and Mailing Addresses
  • Email Address(es) and Phone Number(s)
  • Profile Photo (optional)
  • Sacramental milestones (such as baptism dates, locations, and methods)

3. Granular Privacy Controls (Your Opt-In/Opt-Out Settings)

We believe you should have complete control over who sees your contact information. Epworth CMS features robust public and private visibility settings built right into your profile:

  • Default Visibility: By default, your PII is private and only visible to authorized staff and leaders at your specific home church.
  • Cross-Church and District Directory Visibility: If your church interacts with neighboring congregations or regional connectional ministries, you have the option to opt into a shared directory view. This is strictly opt-in.
  • Restricted Access: If you choose not to opt in, churches outside of your home congregation can only view your public-facing placeholder profile, which is limited to: your Name, your Home Church affiliation, your Profile Photo (if provided), and any specific contact methods you explicitly choose to make public. No other data is exposed.

4. Spiritual Care Notes and Pastoral Privilege

We recognize that ministry involves deep personal and spiritual relationships. Local church pastors and leaders may keep confidential pastoral care or counseling records within the system.

To protect the sanctity of these records and respect clergy-congregant privileges, Epworth personnel never access, read, or screen pastoral care notes unless strictly requested by your church leadership to troubleshoot a direct database error. Furthermore, if you ever request a formal transfer of your membership to a new church within the Epworth network, your profile details will migrate to your new home—but your spiritual care and counseling notes never migrate. They remain permanently tied to the pastor who entered them.

5. Secure Financial Processing

When you give a tithe, offering, or donation through Epworth CMS, your financial security is our highest priority:

  • Credit and Debit Cards: All card transactions are processed via secure, industry-standard integration with Stripe. Epworth does not see, store, or have access to your credit card numbers or security codes.
  • ACH and Bank Transfers: If you give via direct bank transfer, your routing and account details are heavily encrypted in transit and stored securely at rest, and are transmitted strictly through secure pathways to move funds directly to your church’s verified account.

6. Your “Right to Be Forgotten” and the Permanent Church Ledger

You have the right to manage your digital footprint. Upon request to your local church administrator, you can execute a “Right to be Forgotten” deletion request within the software. This will immediately trigger the following permanent actions:

  • Purged Data: All of your active contact information (email, phone, physical address), communication logs, and member portal login credentials will be permanently erased from active production databases.
  • The Permanent Historical Ledger Exception: Epworth CMS serves as the official historical archive for its participating churches. To fulfill denominational requirements for permanent record-keeping (such as the United Methodist “Red Book” registers), your core sacramental history cannot be erased. The software will retain only your Name, Date of Birth, Date/Location/Method of Baptism, and Date of Death (when applicable) as a matter of historical church record.

7. Changes to this Covenant

Because this is a covenant of trust, any material updates to how we process or protect your data will be communicated transparently through the Epworth platform, requiring your church leadership and you to review the commitments we make to keep your community safe.

If you have any questions about how your data is guarded, please reach out to your local church administration or contact Epworth Software Solutions, LLC directly.