On this page
Why, what, howFive places, ten commitmentsThree ways to buildIn conversation withHow the eight became the tenWhen principles pull apartUse them in a reviewMissional by Design · Principles
Missional by Design: principles for spiritual apps
Five places where a Bible, prayer, church or AI app takes a posture, and two commitments in each, derived from the calling to build these tools.
Why, what, how
The calling says why this work matters and how heavy it is. These principles say what we hold, with questions to test a design. The deep dives show how, option by option. Every principle names what it asks the maker to give up: that is the thread through all ten.
Five places, ten commitments
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. Let readers always tell Scripture from our words, and our words from a machine’s.
- 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.
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.
- Welcome before you ask, and guard what is told in confidence
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 as holy ground.
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.
- Make room for rest, and say when it is enough
A faithful product sometimes asks for less: it ends a session, keeps the night quiet, stops asking when the need is met, and lets itself end when its work is done.
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.
- Plant and water; leave the growth to God
Measure what serves the person and the task. Never score a soul, and never claim the fruit as yours.
Who are we becoming as we build?
- Make it well, as an offering
Craft is worship. Excellence, accessibility, beauty and care are how we love God and the person on the other side of the screen.
- 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, confess mistakes plainly, and tend what you release.
Three ways to build, read for spiritual apps
The three ways are the work of Praxis, whose Redemptive Frame sets the exploitative, ethical and redemptive ways of building across what we build, how and why. Its redemptive way is “creative restoration through sacrifice”, and sacrifice includes choosing to “withhold a claim” for the sake of another. FaithTech’s Playbook makes the same turn for technology. We read both for apps whose subject is God, with gratitude; the reading is ours, and neither has reviewed it. Why we use the frame, and its limits →
| Exploitative | Ethical | Redemptive | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Praxis’s three ways | Exploitative: “I Win, you Lose” | Ethical: “I Win, YOU Win” | Redemptive: “I sacrifice, we win” |
| Read for a spiritual app | The app takes the place: it borrows God’s voice, sells access to prayer or a promise of blessing, keeps confidences as data and counts faith as usage | The app keeps its place: safe, honest, accessible, careful with data and time | The app points beyond itself: it withholds claims it could make, tells the truth about itself, and is glad when people close it to go to God and to one another |
| Its question | How much can we take? | Are we doing harm? | What will we give up so that they are closer to God and his people? |
| FaithTech’s parallel | Reckless: “Move Fast, Break Things” | Responsible: “Slow Down, Fix Things” | Redemptive: “Sacrifice, Create Things” |
The ethical column is not a failure. It is common grace, and many apps never reach it. But FaithTech warns that a product “can be safe and useful while still encouraging isolation, dependency, disembodiment”, and in a faith app the first temptation is not only to use people but to use God’s name. The same craft serves both ends: God filled Bezalel “with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of craftsmanship” (Exodus 31:3), and in the next chapter Aaron fashioned a calf “with an engraving tool” (Exodus 32:4).
In conversation with
- Praxis, whose Redemptive Frame gives the three ways and the question of sacrifice; its products playbook asks us to make “what people want to want”. Redemptive entrepreneurship · The Redemptive Business: products
- FaithTech, whose Playbook judges technology by power, person and purpose, names the Magic Machine Myth, the Limitless Self and the Killer App Trap, and practises Lament, Discern, Build and Steward. The FaithTech Playbook
- faith.tools, Cameron Pak’s directory of apps for Christians, whose selection criteria and guardrails for AI apps come from inside the faith-app community. Selection criteria · Guardrails for AI apps for Christians
We are grateful to each; the derivations here are ours, and we have asked them to read and correct them.
How the eight became the ten
Until October 2026 the framework had eight principles: Reverence, Hospitality, Rootedness, Bridge, Grace, Honesty, Costliness and Fruit. 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, had no principle for confidences, money or “enough”, and kept sacrifice as one item among eight. Their old addresses lead here.
| The eight | Where it went | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Reverence “What stands before you is a person, not a user.” | Design for the most vulnerable first, and Welcome before you ask, and guard what is told in confidence | Dignity made concrete: the most vulnerable first, and confidences as holy ground. |
| Hospitality “There is more than one door to faith.” | Welcome before you ask; Make it well, as an offering | Kept, joined with what is asked at the door, and with accessibility as craft. |
| Rootedness “Innovate in the form; remain rooted in the substance.” | Keep the Word distinct, and teach it truly | Rooted in Scripture specifically, with fairness across traditions. |
| Bridge “The tool is the bridge, never the destination.” | Send people to God and to one another | Kept, in the calling’s language, with its qualification. |
| Grace “Grace and freedom, not pressure and guilt.” | Feed the flock, not on it; Make room for rest, and say when it is enough | Widened to money and the ask, and given an end: enough. |
| Honesty “Know whom you serve, and be honest about what you cannot know.” | Never speak for God; Keep the Word distinct | The honesty a faith app most needs: about authority, the machine and the text. |
| Costliness “Pay the price the people you serve shouldn’t have to pay.” | The thread through all ten: what each asks the maker to give up | Sacrifice is the redemptive itself, not one item among eight. |
| Fruit “Look for fruit, not numbers.” | Plant and water; leave the growth to God | Kept, with humility about who gives the growth. |
The six diagnostic questions of the eight survive, attached to the principle each one tests.
When principles pull apart
The ten overlap by design. Use the two or three that bear on a decision, and record the tension instead of scoring it. Immediate safety, the law and truthful representation constrain every option; no aspiration cancels them.
| Decision | Principles in tension | A resolution to test |
|---|---|---|
| A reading plan with a daily reminder | Feed the flock; Make room for rest | A rhythm the person chose, easy rescheduling, and after silence one question, then quiet. |
| An AI that prays with someone at night | Never speak for God; Design for the most vulnerable first | Offer the church’s prayers as the church’s, a way to a person first, and no persona that says it will pray. |
| A community invitation after an abuse disclosure | Send people to one another; Design for the most vulnerable first | Keep the choice with the person, check the destination is safe, and ask a safeguarding lead. |
| A subscription that pays for licensed notes | Feed the flock; Make it well | A price after a first use that says what it pays for, and a cancellation as easy as the purchase. |
Use them in a review
- Start with a person. Name who is holding the phone, and the most vulnerable person likely to.
- Choose the two or three principles that bear on the decision, and ask their questions.
- Write the three ways. One sentence each: what would an exploitative, an ethical and a redemptive product do here?
- Name the cost. What will we give up, and who outside the team agrees?
- Decide, and revisit. Record the tension, the owner and what would change the decision.
The decision worksheet · Questions for discernment · Scenarios
For the whole path, from the calling through the temptations of spiritual formation apps to four practices for a team: the field guide.