Missional by Design · Principles for spiritual apps

Five places.
Ten commitments.

A spiritual tool never designs only a function. It designs an encounter between a person and what they hold most sacred. These principles come from a calling: the joy and the weight of building the tools people now pray, read and ask with. Each names what it asks the maker to give up.

Generated illustration · based on Startup Life photography

The calling says why this work matters and how heavy it is. The principles below say what we hold, with questions to test a design. The deep dives show how, option by option.

Three ways to build

Exploitative, ethical,
redemptive.

The three ways are the work of Praxis, whose Redemptive Frame calls the redemptive way “creative restoration through sacrifice”. We read it for apps whose subject is God, where the first temptation is not only to use people but to use God’s name. FaithTech’s Playbook makes the same turn with reckless, responsible and redemptive technology. The reading is ours; we are grateful to both.

Exploitative

Praxis: “I win, you lose”

The app takes the place. It borrows God’s voice to bring people back, sells access to prayer or a promise of blessing, keeps confidences as data and counts faith as usage. Name it. Refuse it.

Ethical

Praxis: “I win, you win”

The app keeps its place: safe, honest, accessible, lawful, careful with data and time. This is the floor and a gift of common grace, but it is not the goal.

Redemptive

Praxis: “I sacrifice, we win”

The app points beyond itself. It withholds claims it could make on attention, data, money and trust, tells the truth about itself, and is glad when people close it to go to God and to one another.

The Word

What do we put in front of people as God’s word, or about it?

Keep the Word distinct, and teach it truly.

Every screen teaches, and those who teach are judged more strictly. Let readers always tell Scripture from our words, and our words from a machine’s: label every heading, note and answer, show the traditions where Christians differ, and keep a verse inside its passage.

Never speak for God.

An app may quote, explain, pray the church’s prayers and point. It must never pronounce, promise or plead in God’s name, nor let a persona or a machine take the place of a person or of God. The Lord’s Prayer, a psalm or a written liturgy are the church’s words, offered as such; the persona that claims a relationship, and the promise that claims God’s answer, are not ours to make.

The person

How do we receive the one holding the phone?

Design for the most vulnerable first.

Design first for the person most likely to be hurt: in crisis, grieving, abused, scrupulous, new to faith, hurt by a church, or, where an app serves them, a child. Help comes before features, verses or answers, and a way to a person is never behind an account, a limit or a paywall.

Welcome before you ask, and guard what is told in confidence.

“Come and see.” Let people reach what they came for before asking anything, ask only for what serves them when it does, and treat what they tell you to pray as holy ground: never marketing data, never stored by default.

The practice

What do we ask of their time, attention and money, and when do we stop?

Feed the flock, not on it.

Attention, time, devotion and money are entrusted, not harvested. Ask for them honestly, never through guilt, fear, urgency or a promise: no streak warnings marked urgent, no “we miss you” in a persona’s voice, no tier chosen for the giver.

Make room for rest, and say when it is enough.

The Sabbath was made for people. A faithful product sometimes asks for less: it ends a session, keeps the night quiet, stops asking when the need is met, as Moses stopped the offerings when there was more than enough, and lets itself end when its work is done.

The people

Where do we send them, and what do we claim to have grown?

Send people to God and to one another.

The app is a means, never the destination. Judge it by where people go when they close it: to Scripture, to prayer, to a church, a group, a friend. For someone isolated or hurt by a church, an online community may be the safe place; the bridge must lead somewhere chosen and safe.

Plant and water; leave the growth to God.

Measure what serves the person and the task: usability, understanding, burden, harm. Never score a soul, never present usage as spiritual fruit, and never claim the fruit as yours.

The makers

Who are we becoming as we build?

Make it well, as an offering.

God filled Bezalel with skill for his work. Excellence, accessibility, beauty and care are how we love God and the person on the other side of the screen. “It’s for ministry” is never an excuse for careless work.

Hold it with joy and trembling, before God and others.

Rejoice in the work and take its weight: pray for the people who use it, invite those who can say no early, confess mistakes plainly, and tend what you release.

Each principle, with its Scripture, tradition, what it rules in and out, and questions to test a design: patterns.missional.design/principles.

From eight to ten

How the eight
became the ten.

Until October 2026 this framework had eight principles. Read against the calling and the deep dives, they lacked joy and craft, said nothing about speaking for God, treated the most vulnerable as a qualification rather than a starting point, and kept sacrifice as one item among eight. Here is where each went.

Reverence

Design for the most vulnerable first · Welcome before you ask

Hospitality

Welcome before you ask · Make it well, as an offering

Rootedness

Keep the Word distinct, and teach it truly

Bridge

Send people to God and to one another

Grace

Feed the flock, not on it · Make room for rest

Honesty

Never speak for God · Keep the Word distinct

Costliness

The thread through all ten: what each asks the maker to give up

Fruit

Plant and water; leave the growth to God

Tensions

Three things
worth holding.

The ten overlap and sometimes pull apart. Some tensions must be held, not solved.

Rhythm vs. pressure

Feed the flock, and make room for rest. A spiritual life needs rhythm, but the moment a rhythm becomes an enforced expectation it turns into pressure. Invite people into rhythm, and after silence ask once, then stop.

Community vs. starting alone

Send people to one another, and design for the most vulnerable first. Many begin alone, and some were hurt in a church. Build bridges that invite toward community rather than making it the price of entry.

Devotion vs. a voice that is not God’s

Never speak for God, and welcome before you ask. Offer the church’s prayers as the church’s, keep a way to a person first, and let no persona say it will pray.

Six Questions

Diagnostic
questions.

Use these to evaluate any feature, campaign, or design decision before it ships.

Does this serve growth in faith, or only the usage numbers?

Freedom or anxiety?

Would we put our own name under this sentence, or are we borrowing God’s?

Who is the most vulnerable person likely to use this today, and what will they see?

If a user had a spiritually dry year, would they feel welcomed back or judged?

If people developed deep communion with God and no longer needed the app, would we celebrate or mourn?

Want to apply
the framework?

The framework is published openly as a resource for the field, and this version is a draft waiting for theological and pastoral review. If you build Bible, prayer, church or AI tools, or can help review it, I’d love to hear from you.

The ten in full Get in touch About the author

Five places.Ten commitments.

Exploitative, ethical,redemptive.