First Love Church

Privacy policy

Last updated 17 October 2026

First Love Church (“we”, “us”) runs the Pastoral Assistant. It answers messages sent to First Love Church and its pastors on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and gives our pastors a private portal to follow those conversations. This policy explains what we collect, why, who can see it, and the choices you have. First Love Church is responsible for your information.

What we collect

When you message us

  • Your name and profile picture as they appear on WhatsApp or Messenger.
  • Your WhatsApp number, or the ID Messenger gives you for our page.
  • What you send: text, voice notes, photos, documents and anything else you share, such as a location.
  • Whether our messages were delivered and read.
  • What comes out of the conversation: prayer requests, testimonies, appointment requests, replies to event invitations, the books we sent you and whether you downloaded them, and short notes that help us remember you, such as your preferred language.

When a pastor adds you

A pastor may add a leader or member to their contacts so their assistant can follow up on a task or check on them. We record your name and number, any role or notes the pastor adds, the groups you are in, and which pastor added you and when. Pastors confirm that the people they add have agreed to hear from First Love Church on WhatsApp.

Pastors and staff who use the portal

Name, email address, a scrambled (hashed) form of the password, sign-in activity, a record of which conversations they opened, and, if they choose, a Google Calendar connection and notification settings for their devices.

How we use it

  • To reply to you with care, pray with you, and connect you with a pastor when you need one.
  • To remember the context of your conversation, so you don’t have to repeat yourself.
  • To share books and messages by Bishop Dag Heward-Mills.
  • To arrange appointments and remind you of them.
  • To send messages a pastor has asked us to send you, such as a follow-up on a task or an invitation to a service.
  • To alert a pastor straight away if a message suggests someone may be in danger.
  • To keep the service secure, fix problems, and count how it is used. These counts don’t identify anyone.

We don’t sell your information, and we don’t use it for advertising.

Replies from an AI assistant

Many replies are written by an AI assistant working for our pastors. The pastor whose number or page you messaged can read the conversation and step in at any time. If you ask whether you are talking to a person, the assistant will tell you honestly and can pass you to a pastor.

To write replies and understand voice notes and photos, your messages are processed by AI models running on Google Cloud. Under Google Cloud’s terms, this content is not used to train AI models.

Who can see it

  • The pastor whose number or page you messaged, and people that pastor has authorised, such as a secretary.
  • A small number of First Love Church administrators who run the service.

Each time someone opens a conversation in the portal, it is recorded.

We also use these service providers, who handle your information only to provide their service to us:

  • Meta (WhatsApp and Messenger) carries messages between you and us. Meta’s own privacy policy also applies to your use of WhatsApp and Messenger.
  • Google Cloud runs the AI models that write replies and transcribe voice notes.
  • Cloudflare stores the photos, voice notes and documents in conversations.
  • Hostinger hosts our servers and database.
  • Dag Books creates your personal book download links. We share your name and your WhatsApp number or Messenger ID with it for that.
  • Resend sends emails to pastors and staff, such as invitations and password resets.
  • Sentry receives error reports when something goes wrong, which can include technical details of the request.
  • Google Calendar, only for pastors who connect it, keeps their appointments in their own calendar. Appointment details, which can include your name, are then stored in that pastor’s Google account.

Some of these providers store or process information outside Ghana, for example in the European Union or the United States. We may also share information when the law requires it, or when it is needed to protect someone’s life or safety.

How long we keep it

  • When a conversation has had no messages for 24 months, we delete its messages, photos, voice notes, documents, notes, prayer requests and testimonies, and replace your name and number with a scrambled code. Only anonymous counts remain.
  • The raw message notifications we receive from Meta are deleted after 30 days.
  • Our encrypted database backups expire within 13 months.

Your choices and rights

  • Stop messages. Reply STOP on WhatsApp or Messenger and we will stop sending you messages from any First Love Church number.
  • Delete your data. See how to delete your data.
  • See or correct your information. Ask us, using the contact details below.

Under Ghana’s Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843), you can ask for access to your information, ask us to correct or delete it, and object to how we use it. You can also complain to the Data Protection Commission.

How we protect it

Connections to the portal and to Meta are encrypted. Passwords are stored hashed, the keys for connected services are encrypted, and backups are encrypted. Only signed-in pastors and staff can open conversations, each sees only the assistants they belong to, and access is recorded.

Children

WhatsApp and Messenger are for people aged 13 and over. If you believe a child has shared information with us and you want it removed, contact us.

Changes

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top of this page.

Contact us

Email tech@firstlovecenter.com, message any First Love Church WhatsApp number or our Facebook page, or speak to one of our pastors.

First Love Church, Behind Allied Oil Filling Station, UPSA, East Legon, Accra, Ghana.