Last updated: October 6, 2026
Sermon Sidekick is built for private Bible study. We do not sell personal data, show behavioral advertising, or use cross-app advertising trackers. Your notes and Journal are private to you. They are not shared with your church, pastor, advertisers, or the public. Other people see your writing only when you post or share it in a Group Study, and then that group's members see it. A member can export an ended session and share it outside the app, and the Sermon Sidekick team sees a post that is reported. AI features send text to an AI provider only when you use them or, in a Group Study, allow AI to read your shared posts, as described below.
Live Listen uses your device's speech-recognition service to turn speech into note text. Recognition may be processed online by Apple or Google; supported devices can fall back to on-device recognition when available. In versions with kept recordings, Journal and service-note recording controls can also save the audio on the recording device for playback. The app identifies when it will keep audio. These audio files are not uploaded to Sermon Sidekick servers, Firebase, RevenueCat, Anthropic, or OpenAI by the app. Note text and recording references, such as the file name, time, and duration, may sync with your account; the audio itself does not follow you to another device. Other Live Listen controls transcribe without retaining an audio file. Device speech services handle recognition under their own terms.
Read Aloud uses a voice available through the device's text-to-speech service. Sermon Sidekick does not upload Bible, sermon, study, or note text to an AI provider merely to read it aloud.
Ask about this passage, Silas online answers, and summaries of your notes run only when you choose to use them. In a Group Study with AI, a member's question, or the leader ending a session, sends the shared posts of members who allowed AI to read them; see Group AI. Nothing else is sent to an AI provider in the background. Before you first use a feature, the app says what will be sent and to which provider. We use these providers as service providers to produce the response. AI answers can be wrong; check them against Scripture.
When you choose to use it, the app sends the Scripture passage you are reading, its reference, your question and, for a follow-up, your earlier questions and answers in that conversation to an AI provider, to write an answer about that passage. Which provider depends on your version of the app. Current versions use Anthropic's commercial API, and Anthropic handles that data under its current commercial privacy and retention terms; see Anthropic's Privacy Center. Updated versions use OpenAI, and the app asks for your agreement, naming OpenAI, before your first question.
We send OpenAI requests with OpenAI's response storage turned off. Under OpenAI's API terms, OpenAI may keep requests and responses for up to 30 days to detect abuse, unless our account is approved for zero data retention. We do not send your name, email address, Journal, notes or group content. In every version, a question that describes a crisis or danger is not sent to any AI provider: the app shows help resources instead, and nothing about that question is stored. The questions you ask and the answers are kept in your private account history so a conversation can continue. They stay until you delete your account. Answers can be wrong; check them against Scripture and your pastor.
Silas's reading tools run on your device and do not use an AI service. In versions where Silas can also answer questions online, online answers need a signed-in account with Sidekick Plus, and the app asks for your agreement before your first online question. You can withdraw that agreement in the app at any time; later questions then get Silas's on-device reply. When you ask an online question, we send OpenAI your typed question, the text of the Bible chapter you are asking about, and up to three of your earlier questions and Silas's answers about that chapter. We do not send your name, email address, Journal, notes or group content.
We keep the question and answer on our servers for up to 24 hours, so an interrupted request can be recovered without being charged twice. After that, a scheduled cleanup removes the text. We keep a small record with no question or answer text until you delete your account: a one-way fingerprint of the request, its status, your usage count, and whether it followed a help-resources reply. We send requests with OpenAI's response storage turned off. Under OpenAI's API terms, OpenAI may keep API requests and responses for up to 30 days to detect abuse, unless our account is approved for zero data retention.
If you choose to summarise your notes, the Journal entries and reflections you select are sent to Anthropic to write the summary: their text, dates, page type, and passage references. The app asks for your agreement each time, and nothing is selected until you select it. Dedicated prayer and verse-note fields are not sent. Anything written inside a selected entry, including prayers or names, is sent as part of its text. We do not add your name, email, or church. Summaries need a signed-in account. The summary is saved to your account, so it syncs to your devices, and it is deleted when you delete your account. We do not write your note text to our logs. What Anthropic does with the text afterwards is governed by its terms.
In versions where a Group Study offers AI questions and session summaries, they are produced with Anthropic. When a member asks AI a question, we send that question, the group's active passage, and the shared posts of members who allowed AI to read their posts. When a leader ends a session, a summary is written automatically from the shared posts of members who allowed AI to read them. Each member chooses whether AI may read their shared posts in that group. Declining keeps their posts out, and leaving the group withdraws the choice. Private group notes are never sent. AI answers and summaries are visible to the group.
A church administrator may submit a public-facing sermon title, Scripture references, message, outline, or notes for the purpose of generating a congregation-facing sermon companion. Those submitted source materials may be processed through Anthropic's commercial API. Generated companion text can be made visible to authorized congregation members. Church leaders should not submit confidential counseling details, private prayer requests, contact information, identifying details about minors, or stories they do not have permission to share.
In versions with Group Study (part of Sidekick Plus), you can join a group by invitation and the group leader's approval.
Firestore security rules restrict personal records to their authenticated owner, and churches, pastors, other users, advertisers, and the public cannot read those records through the app. Group Study content is the exception you choose: what you post or share in a group is visible to that group's members, and a reported post can be seen by the Sermon Sidekick team. Authorized service operators may access account data only when reasonably necessary for support, security, abuse prevention, report review, legal compliance, or system maintenance. We do not routinely read personal notes.
Local records remain on the device until you delete them, clear the app's data, or uninstall the app. Synced records remain in Firebase until they are deleted individually or the associated identity/account is deleted. Service providers may retain limited operational logs, backups, or security records for the periods allowed by their policies and applicable law. Device-local copies on an offline device may remain until that device reconnects, the app clears them, or its local app data is removed.
Silas online questions and answers are kept for up to 24 hours, as described above. Note summaries stay in your account until you delete them or your account. Ask the Passage history stays in your account until you delete your account. Group Study posts stay in the group until their author deletes them, a leader removes them, or the author's account is deleted.
RevenueCat subscription records are separate from Firebase study data. They are used to maintain and restore access and to support subscription reporting. In-app account deletion automatically requests removal of the associated RevenueCat customer record and purchase history. The app confirms completion only after RevenueCat cleanup and app-account cleanup succeed. Uninstalling the app alone does not request this server-side deletion. Apple and Google retain their store transaction records under their own policies and legal requirements. Kept audio remains device-local; removing app data or uninstalling removes the app's local copy, but any separate device backup may be managed by the device provider.
Individual Journal entries and highlights can be removed in the app. A deleted Journal entry moves to Recently deleted on every device, where you can restore it for 30 days or delete it now. From the Account screen (Me → Account), you can permanently delete your automatic guest identity or linked account, including the associated Firebase Authentication record, synced profile, notes, highlights, progress, Journal entries, church memberships, church inquiries, Ask the Passage (Live Q&A) history, note summaries, Silas online records, and your Group Study data as described in Group Study. A local-only offline guest can clear its local guest data without first creating a server identity. Explicit sign-out and deletion also clear the app's saved church and sermon cache on the initiating device. Other offline devices may retain local copies until they reconnect or their app data is cleared.
Use Me → Account to delete your account and its associated RevenueCat subscription records automatically. If cleanup cannot be confirmed, the app keeps a recovery request so you can retry. If you cannot access the app or deletion needs an ownership check, contact support@sermonsidekick.org. We verify ownership before handling a support request. Do not email passwords, payment-card details, or personal study content. Returning to the app, restoring purchases, or purchasing again can create new subscription records.
Deleting an account or its subscription data does not cancel store renewal. Use Manage subscription in the app or your Apple subscriptions or Google Play subscriptions settings to cancel. You can ask for data deletion without cancelling first; these are separate actions. For help, visit subscription support.
We use owner-scoped database rules, authenticated server functions, local ownership boundaries, and a crash-resumable account-deletion process. No system can promise absolute security, but the app is designed to minimize collection and keep personal study data separated from shared church content.
Sermon Sidekick is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under 13. You must be at least 13 years old to use it; see our Terms of Use. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Material changes will be reflected on this page with a revised date. Where appropriate, the app may present a new disclosure or request renewed consent before a newly enabled data-processing feature is used.
Email support@sermonsidekick.org or visit the Support page for help with privacy, data deletion, permissions, or account access.