Last updated September 19, 2026Effective September 19, 2026
The Way is a place to find a church, find fellowship, and — for adults who choose it — meet someone with intention. Because this app touches faith, family, and relationships, we treat your information carefully and we try to explain it plainly.
The short version
We collect what the app genuinely needs: your email, display name, date of birth, a general city, the languages you speak, any photos you add, and the messages you send.
We never sell your personal information.
Your precise location is used only while you are actively using the app, and it is never stored. We save only a general city.
Your date of birth is never shown on your profile. It confirms your age and nothing else.
Your messages are protected in transit but are not end-to-end encrypted. A small, named safety team can read specific messages when investigating a report — never as casual browsing.
You can block and report anyone, from anywhere in the app. The person you block is never told.
You can delete your account yourself, and you can ask us for a copy of your data.
Who we are
Lumetrin Consulting Services LLC operates The Way. Our address is 4600 Forbes Blvd, Suite 301, Lanham, MD 20706, United States. For privacy questions write to support@thewaychrist.com. For everything else, support@thewaychrist.com.
What we collect
When you create an account:
Email address — to sign you in, verify your account, and reach you about your account or safety matters.
Display name — the name other members see.
Date of birth — to confirm you meet the minimum age, and that you are 18 or older before Intentional Fellowship is available.
Password — stored only as a secure, irreversible hash. We never see it in readable form.
On your profile: a general city, the languages you speak, optional photos, and optional details such as a short bio, faith background, and the churches or groups you choose to show.
As you use the app: messages and introduction requests, saved churches, group memberships and RSVPs, reports you file or that are filed about you, and — only if you turn notifications on — a delivery token for your device and whether it is an iPhone or an Android phone.
What we do not collect
We do not collect your contacts, your calendar, your photo library beyond the images you deliberately upload, your browsing outside The Way, or a precise location history. We do not run third-party advertising trackers.
Why we use your information
Where the law requires a legal basis, we rely on performing our contract with you (running the app), our legitimate interests (safety, security, improvement), your consent (location permission, optional notifications), and legal obligation.
To create and secure your account, and confirm your age.
To show you churches, groups, and events relevant to where you are and the language you worship in.
To let you message people, within the limits you set.
To keep the community safe — reviewing reports, investigating abuse, enforcing our rules.
To send notifications you asked for, and important account or safety messages.
To fix bugs, measure whether features work, and improve the product.
To meet legal obligations and respond to lawful requests.
Location
Location is where people most often expect one thing and get another, so we want to be exact. Full detail is in the Location Privacy document.
Church addresses are different: churches are public venues and their addresses are public on their listings. Private and restricted events reveal an exact address only to approved attendees.
Precise location is used only while you are using the app — for “churches near me” and distance while a search runs.
Precise location is never stored. Not on your profile, not in a history, not shared with other members.
Only a coarse, city-level location is saved to your account.
Other members never see your exact position — only a city and, where distance appears, a band such as “within 5 miles”.
You can decline location permission and still use the app. Enter a city, ZIP, or neighborhood by hand instead.
Date of birth
We ask for your date of birth once, at sign-up.
It is never displayed on your profile and never shown to other members.
It confirms you meet the minimum age for an account, and that you are 18 or older before Intentional Fellowship is available.
Eligibility is always calculated from your date of birth on our servers. If you turn 18, eligibility updates on its own.
It is not editable in the app — that stops people changing their age to reach features meant for adults. If it was entered incorrectly, contact support@thewaychrist.com and we will correct it with a record of the change.
Messages and what we can see
We would rather be honest than reassuring here.
The normal working material for a report is the snapshot the reporter submitted, not the whole conversation.
Messages are encrypted in transit and protected by access controls in storage.
Messages are not end-to-end encrypted. We will never describe them as end-to-end encrypted or impossible for us to read, because that would not be true.
Ordinary moderators cannot browse private conversations. There is no “view all conversations” screen anywhere in our tools.
Only a small number of designated safety personnel can access message content, and only when tied to a specific open report, abuse investigation, legal obligation, or serious safety concern — and only the messages relevant to it.
Every access is recorded in an append-only log: who looked, at which conversation, for which case, when, and why. That log is reviewed regularly.
Who can see your information
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.
Other members see your display name, photos, general city, languages, and anything else you deliberately put on your profile. They do not see your email, date of birth, precise location, or password.
People you block lose access to your profile and cannot contact you. They are not told that you blocked them.
Service providers who run hosting, the database, authentication, email delivery, and push notification delivery process data only under contract, on our instructions, to provide those services.
Law enforcement or legal requests are answered only where we are legally required to. We aim to notify you unless prohibited or a life is at risk.
A buyer or successor, if the service is ever transferred, subject to this policy continuing to apply.
Security
We use encryption in transit, authorisation checks enforced on our servers for every read and write, role-restricted staff access, hashed passwords, and audit logging for sensitive actions. No system is perfectly secure, and we will not promise otherwise. If a breach affects you, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
How long we keep information
The Account Deletion document explains this in more detail.
Active accounts: while your account exists.
Deleted accounts: deactivated immediately, with a 14-day grace period in which you can come back. After that, profile data, saves, memberships, and RSVPs are permanently deleted, and backups are purged within 90 days.
Messages you sent to others: kept in those conversations so they still make sense, attributed to “Former member” with your identifying details removed.
Safety records — moderation cases, evidence snapshots, enforcement history, audit logs — are kept for at least 12 months after deletion, or longer where the law requires, restricted to safety and administrative roles.
Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or export your data, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to complain to a regulator. Everyone using The Way gets the following regardless. We will never treat you differently for exercising these rights.
See and edit your profile at any time in the app.
Control who can message you, in Settings.
Turn location off entirely, in the app or in your device settings.
Block and report anyone, from any surface.
Request a copy of your data by writing to support@thewaychrist.com. We aim to respond within 30 days.
Delete your account from Settings, or by writing to us.
Children
You must be at least 13 years old to hold an account on The Way. Intentional Fellowship requires you to be 18 or older, and that is checked on our servers every time, not stored as a flag that could go stale.
We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we remove the account and delete the data. If you believe a child has an account here, tell us at support@thewaychrist.com.
International transfers
Our infrastructure providers may process data in countries other than yours. Where that happens we rely on appropriate legal transfer mechanisms and require providers to protect the data to the standard described here.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we will tell you in the app and by email before the change takes effect, and we will record the version you accepted. The date at the top always shows the current version.
Contact us
Lumetrin Consulting Services LLC, 4600 Forbes Blvd, Suite 301, Lanham, MD 20706, United States. This policy is governed by the law of Maryland, United States.