Trade-offs to hold
Where the deep dives pull against each other
Most choices in these deep dives agree: in a crisis, help comes first; the person sets it, or it does not happen; change the manner, not the message. A few pull against each other. These are the places teams get stuck. Each one names the two choices, what pulls between them and one way to hold them together.
23 pairs
Choices that pull
Warmth in the conversation, and honesty about who speaks
How human the assistant seems: Labeled assistant · Named assistant · PersonaAI personas and roles: A guide · A pastor or priest · Christ or God
A warm name and first-person voice can make a question easier to ask, and the same cues can blur who is speaking and what authority the reply carries.
Holding itKeep warmth in the manner and clarity in the role: identify AI before someone has to ask, distinguish quoted words from explanation, and make no claim to a person’s feelings, prayer or office. A kind guide can point to people without pretending to be one.
Knowing others are present, and prayer kept in confidence
Sharing with a group: The whole church · A public wall · Ranked by prayer streaksPrayer: People I pray for · Quiet prayer · Counted prayer
A visible response can help someone feel less alone, while public totals and rankings turn private prayer into something people are asked to display.
Holding itKeep requests and responses with the people chosen to receive them. Let someone send a private acknowledgment to the requester if they choose; describe it honestly as an acknowledgment, not a measurement of prayer. Leave quiet prayer unrecorded and give it no lower standing.
A useful next step, and permission for the practice to end
Devotional audio: Guided prayer · Sleep story · Endless streamEnding the conversation: Closes well · Suggests a break · One more question · A hook at goodbye
An onward suggestion can help someone continue a practice, and the same suggestion can turn its ending into another route back into the app.
Holding itLet the practice finish inside itself. Offer at most one optional step once, with closing just as easy, and start nothing automatically. After sleep content, end in silence; a resting person should not have to stop what the app queues next.
Reminders that bring people back, and streaks that drive them away
Notifications and reminders: Engagement-driven · Their own bellProgress and streaks: Month calendar with a streak · Today’s step
Reminders work best when they warn of a loss, and that same loss is what makes people stop after a gap.
Holding itRemind in the person’s own words and at their times, and never mention the count. Let the plan wait after a missed day, so a reminder invites rather than threatens.
Paying for the work, and welcoming people first
Giving and offerings: A gift tied to a benefit · A quiet way to giveFirst use: Asking for payment · Open on what they came for
An app needs money, and the strongest moment to ask is before someone has received anything.
Holding itSay plainly what stays free, let people reach what they came for first, then ask once, after value, and call a purchase a purchase and a gift a gift.
Protective defaults, and opt-in rates
First use: Guest first, an account when there is something to keep · Questions firstNotifications and reminders: Their own bell · Engagement-driven
Defaults decide most outcomes, and the defaults that protect people cost sign-ups and opt-ins.
Holding itDefault to the less invasive setting, and ask at the moment a feature needs it, with a reason the person can weigh.
Questions that improve fit, and answers that become a commitment
Meeting the person where they are: Preferences you setFirst use: Questions first
Questions at the start help an app fit the person, and the same answers can become a commitment that leads into a paywall.
Holding itAsk only what changes the content, show what each answer changed, let it be skipped or forgotten, and never let answers set a price.
Meeting someone where they are, and telling them the truth
Meeting the person where they are: Preferences you set · Assumed, and shownAgreeing and pushing back: Names a disagreement · Asks a question back
Every way of adapting to the person also makes it easier to tell them what they want to hear.
Holding itAdapt the way in, and keep the message. Ask the same question with and without what the assistant knows about the person: if the substance changes, it has started agreeing. A stored preference to hear no hard words never switches off honest disagreement.
Limits that let people rest, and staying present in a crisis
Ending the conversation: A length they choose · Suggests a breakWhat the assistant talks about: Hard days, with limits
A limit set to protect sleep can end a conversation at the worst moment.
Holding itA crisis pauses limits, timers and break prompts, including breaks a teenager cannot switch off. Offer rest again once help has been given and is still in view, and test this case on purpose.
The person’s choice, and a duty to protect
Handing over to people: Names the right person · A person joinsSharing with a group: Through a person you choose · A group with a leader
The assistant passes nothing on without asking, yet some of the people it hands someone to must act on what they hear, and a child at risk needs protection first.
Holding itNever route anyone automatically. Before anything is shared, everyone the assistant hands someone to says what they would have to pass on. Have safeguarding specialists review the case of a child at risk.
Following up, and forgetting
When the assistant writes first: A check-in they set · A daily page from memoryAI memory: Nothing kept · Memory you can see
A follow-up matters most after the very conversation the assistant should remember least.
Holding itOffer a check-in once, after any danger has passed, and keep only the words the person chose for it, nothing else they said. Often the better follow-up comes from a person they choose.
A grown-up beside the child, and a child’s own questions
Children and AI: Ask together · AI for the grown-upsChildren and families: Read together · A youth group with a leader
The safest design puts a grown-up beside the child, but a grown-up can be the reason a child is afraid, and some questions are only asked alone.
Holding itMake a grown-up the usual company, never the only way to help. Give parents no record of what the child wrote, and give a frightened child a way to help that does not depend on who is reading over their shoulder.
Laying out the range, and holding a position
Whose theology: Shared faith, then the range · You choose a traditionAgreeing and pushing back: Names a disagreement · Corrects plainly
An assistant that sets out the churches’ views fairly has no single position to hold, and on divorce, forgiveness or church attendance the churches’ teaching is the very thing they disagree about.
Holding itHold firm on the shared faith and on plain facts. On contested questions, show where the churches stand and ask a question back rather than give a verdict. If the person has chosen a tradition, hold to it.
Saying whose teaching it is, and welcoming the skeptic
Whose theology: One tradition, named · You choose a traditionFirst use: Open on what they came for · Guest first, an account when there is something to keep
Honesty means naming a church at the door, but a church label or a step that asks people to choose a tradition can feel like a membership test to an inquirer or to someone a church has hurt.
Holding itSay whose teaching the assistant follows in one plain line, as a description rather than a gate. Never make someone choose a church before they may ask a question.
A companion that is always there, and a bridge to people
What the assistant talks about: A spiritual companionHanding over to people: Names the right person · Their own church, if they ask · A person joins
A product built for daily company succeeds when people keep coming back; handing over counts it as success when someone finds a person.
Holding itA companion is for people with no one to walk with, so success is finding that someone. Decide in advance what counts, such as hand-offs made, and design endings and hand-offs before anything that builds attachment. Count the hand-offs, not the hours.
Paying for answers, and limits that serve the person
First use: Asking for paymentEnding the conversation: A length they choose
Every AI answer has a real cost, and a message allowance can look just like a limit that sells more conversations.
Holding itAn allowance is a price, so call it one. Keep it apart from limits that protect rest, never let it end a hard conversation, and never count crisis help against it.
Asking nothing at the door, and knowing a child might be there
First use: Guest first, an account when there is something to keep · Open on what they came forChildren and AI: A filtered chat for children · No AI for children
A first use that asks for nothing leaves a team unable to tell when a child has reached the chat.
Holding itDesign the chat as if a child might be on the other side. Keep open chat out of guest mode, or make guest chat safe for children by default, rather than relying on a typed age.
Offering a psalm, and holding back Scripture in a crisis
Spiritual acts and AI: Points beyond itselfCitations in AI answers
A request for prayer often comes from fear late at night, and the reply that points beyond itself offers a psalm first.
Holding itAsking for prayer is asking for prayer, not for a judgment on their situation. If the message also signals danger, help comes first, and the psalm afterward if they want it.
The common word, and a word for you
Meeting the person where they are: The same for everyone · Reads the messageReading plans: Daily readings
Shared readings form a community, but a reply written for everyone can assume agreement and lose the skeptic.
Holding itKeep the passage everyone reads, and adapt only the way in: the length, the language and the question it starts from. Change the manner, never the message.
The assistant writing first, and restraint in notifications
When the assistant writes first: A check-in they set · A daily page from memoryNotifications and reminders: Their own bell · Messages about the person
A check-in the person asked for can be real care, but a message built from what they confided is exactly what a lock screen should not show.
Holding itA message the person set is their own bell. Anything built from what they confided stays inside the app, keeps to quiet hours and stays off the lock screen.
Easy swipes, and counts that matter
Feeds, cards and stories: Cards in order · A daily set of storiesProgress and streaks: Month calendar with a streak · Levels and badges
A feed makes every swipe easy to count, and a streak makes the count matter.
Holding itCount readings the person chooses, never swipes or cards, and keep the end card free of any tally.
A daily verse, and a feed without end
Feeds, cards and stories: A feed in order, without endNotifications and reminders: A daily word
A reminder that brings people back and a feed that never ends work as one loop.
Holding itIf you send a daily verse, let it open the passage with its end, not the feed: a reading that is enough for today.
One verse at a time, and the passage around it
Feeds, cards and stories: Cards in orderHow much text at once: One passage · Whole chapter
One verse to a card is an easy way in, and the same split hides the verses that give it its meaning.
Holding itMake cards a door into the passage: keep the verses around each card one tap away, and let readers move to the whole passage whenever they are ready.
Read each pair in its deep dives, where the options can be tried side by side. The safeguarding and crisis pairs await review by the specialists named on those pages.
Take into your next review
Which of your choices pull against each other, and how will you hold them?