Privacy Policy

IPC Tabernacle Dallas, Inc., also known as Indian Pentecostal Church Tabernacle Dallas, Inc. ("IPC Tabernacle Dallas," "the Church," "we," "us," or "our"), respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal information you share with us. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through our website at ipctabernacledallas.org (the "Site") and in connection with our ministries, meetings, and activities, how we use and protect that information, and the choices available to you.

By using our Site, or by attending, participating in, or expressing interest in our meetings, services, events, or activities, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

1. Scope of This Policy

This Policy applies to information we collect through our Site and through our in-person, virtual (including phone-line), and social-media ministry activities. It does not apply to third-party websites, applications, or services that we do not own or control, even if we link to them (see Section 11).

2. Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of information:

a. Information You Provide to Us

• Contact and inquiry information. When you submit our contact form or otherwise reach out to us, we collect the information you provide, such as your name, email address, and the contents of your message. Your message is delivered to us by email through our third-party providers — Cloudflare, which runs the service that receives the form, and Resend, which sends the email. A third-party form provider (Formspree) is used as a backup only if that service is unavailable.
• Interest and participation information. If you express interest in attending, register for, or take part in our meetings or activities, we may collect your name and contact details (such as email address or phone number) so we can follow up with you.
• Prayer requests and voluntary submissions. Any additional information you choose to share with us, including prayer requests.
• Visitor connection cards. If you complete our Connect form (online at /connect, or the printed card handed out at services), we collect the information you provide: your name, how you came to know about the church, who accompanied you, any prayer request, and any contact number or email address you choose to give. Only your name is required. The card is delivered to us by email through the same providers as our contact form — Cloudflare and Resend, with Formspree as a backup only if that service is unavailable — and we use it to welcome you, follow up, and pray for you.
• Condolence messages. If you leave a message of sympathy for a bereaved family through our Site, we collect your name and the message you write, along with your relationship to the family and a contact detail if you choose to give either — only your name and the message are required. Messages are held briefly by Cloudflare and then delivered to the church by email through Resend, normally within the hour. Because these messages are written for the family to read and keep, we do not delete them on a schedule as we do our other records.
• Chat assistant messages. If you use the automated chat assistant on our Site, we collect the questions and messages you type into it. We keep a record of these questions and the assistant's replies for about a month, so that we can see what people are asking and improve the answers. Two exceptions are built into that record: if a question results in a church member's contact details being looked up, neither your question nor the reply is stored at all, and prayer requests are never recorded beyond the fact that one was sent and when.
• Page visits. We count how many times certain pages are opened — for example the service programme reached by the QR code at the church doors — so that we know whether they are being used. This is a simple daily total. It uses no cookies, sets no identifier, and records nothing about who you are, where you are, or what device you used.
• Prayer requests submitted through the chat assistant. If you ask the assistant for prayer, the request — together with any name or contact detail you choose to give — is emailed to the church through our third-party email provider (Resend). You may submit a prayer request without giving your name or any contact details.
• If delivery is delayed. Our contact form, visitor connection cards and prayer requests are emailed to the church the moment you send them. If our email provider is temporarily unavailable, we hold your submission securely until it can be delivered — normally within minutes. Anything still undelivered after 14 days is removed.
• Member verification. If you identify yourself as a church member in the chat assistant, we collect the mobile number you enter in order to check it against our church membership records and to send you a one-time verification code by SMS.

b. Information Collected Automatically

Like most websites, our hosting provider automatically records standard server-log information when you visit the Site, which may include your IP address, browser type, device type, referring pages, and the date and time of your visit. This information is used for security, diagnostics, and to understand general Site usage.

c. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Our Site does not use first-party advertising or analytics cookies to track you. However, certain third-party services embedded on our Site — such as Google Fonts, the Elfsight social-media (Instagram) widget, and the Cloudflare Turnstile bot check used by our chat assistant — may set their own cookies or collect technical information (such as your IP address) directly, in accordance with their own privacy policies. Most web browsers allow you to control or disable cookies through their settings.

d. Automated Chat Assistant

Our Site may offer an automated chat assistant that answers questions about the church. Please note the following:

• Your messages are processed by a third-party AI provider (Anthropic) in order to generate a reply. Do not enter sensitive personal information, financial details, or confidential matters into the chat.
• Replies are generated automatically and may be incomplete or incorrect. The assistant does not provide pastoral counsel, and nothing it says is an official statement of the church. For anything important, please contact the church office.
• Verification codes are sent by a third-party SMS provider (Twilio). Standard message and data rates may apply. A code is only ever sent to a mobile number already held in our church records.
• Church members who verify their mobile number may look up the contact details of other members — their name, mobile number, and address — as an online equivalent of the church directory. These lookups are limited in number, are recorded in our access logs, and are available only to verified members, never to the general public. The record of a lookup shows who searched, who was found, and when. It does not include the address or mobile number that was shown, and the question and reply are not stored for these conversations at all.
• If you are a church member and do not wish your contact details to be available through the chat assistant, please contact us at info@ipctabernacledallas.org and we will remove them from this feature.
• The assistant can pass on a prayer request, which is emailed to the church as described in Section 2(a). It is not a substitute for pastoral care, and it does not provide counselling or spiritual direction.
• The assistant cannot accept donations, register you for anything, change any church record, or receive files or attachments of any kind.

3. Photography, Audio & Video (Media Release)

IPC Tabernacle Dallas frequently photographs, records, livestreams, and broadcasts its meetings, services, events, and activities for ministry, documentation, and promotional purposes.

By attending, participating in, or registering for any IPC Tabernacle Dallas meeting, service, event, or activity — whether held on our church campus, at other physical locations, or through virtual/phone-line meetings and our social-media channels (including Facebook and Instagram) — or if you otherwise interact with us, you acknowledge and agree that your image, likeness, voice, and video may be photographed, recorded, livestreamed, or otherwise captured, and that IPC Tabernacle Dallas can and will use, reproduce, and reuse such materials — including on social media, YouTube, our website, hard-copy and printed materials, and other digital or physical media now known or later developed — for ministry, promotional, and related purposes, without compensation to you.

If you prefer not to be photographed or recorded, please notify a staff member at the event or contact us at info@ipctabernacledallas.org, and we will make reasonable efforts to accommodate your request. You may also request that we remove specific materials featuring you from our Site or social-media channels by contacting us; we will make reasonable efforts to honor such requests, subject to any legal or technical limitations.

4. Security Monitoring and Surveillance

For the safety and security of our congregation, staff, volunteers, visitors, and property, we maintain security and video surveillance systems on our physical premises and monitor activity on our digital platforms, including the Site. We may record, log, and retain video, audio, and activity data, and may use it for security, safety, incident investigation, and legal purposes. We may disclose such records to law enforcement or as otherwise permitted or required by law. By entering our premises or using the Site, you acknowledge and consent to this monitoring and recording.

5. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

• Respond to your inquiries, prayer requests, and messages;
• Follow up with individuals who express interest in attending or participating;
• Communicate with you about services, events, ministries, and activities;
• Operate, maintain, secure, and improve our Site and ministries;
• Produce and share ministry and promotional materials (see Section 3);
• Provide for the safety and security of our people and property (see Section 4); and
• Comply with applicable law and protect the rights, safety, and property of the Church and others.

6. Communications and Your Choices

Individuals who attend our meetings or activities, engage with our social-media channels, or otherwise express interest in attending may receive communications from us by email, telephone, or text message. You may opt out of these communications at any time:

• Email: use the unsubscribe link included in our emails, or contact us directly.
• Text messages: reply STOP to any text message to opt out. Message and data rates may apply.
• All communications: contact us at info@ipctabernacledallas.org to update your preferences.

Please note that we may still send you non-promotional messages, such as responses to your direct inquiries.

7. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information to any outside entity for profit. We share information only in the following limited circumstances:

• Service providers. We use trusted third-party providers to operate our Site and ministries — for example, our website host, our content-management provider (Contentful), embedded service providers (such as Google Fonts and the Elfsight social-media widget), our form and chat-assistant providers (Cloudflare for hosting, for the Turnstile bot check that protects them from automated abuse, and for the service that receives our contact and visitor connection forms; Resend for emailing those forms and prayer requests to the church; Anthropic for generating chat replies; and Twilio for sending verification codes by SMS), our backup form provider (Formspree, used only if our own service is unavailable), and our church-management platform (OneChurch Software). These providers may process information on our behalf and are expected to protect it.
• Other verified church members. If you are a church member, your name, mobile number, and address held in our church records may be shown to another church member who has verified their own membership through the chat assistant, in the same way a printed church directory would. This information is not shown to the general public. See Section 2(d), including how to opt out.
• Ministry and promotional materials. Photographs, audio, and video may be shared publicly as described in Section 3.
• Legal and safety reasons. We may disclose information, including surveillance records, when required by law, subpoena, or legal process, or when we believe disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, safety, or property of the Church, our congregation, or others.
• Church transitions. In connection with a merger, affiliation change, or reorganization of the Church, information may be transferred as part of that transition.

8. Data Security

We take reasonable administrative, technical, and physical measures to protect the information we collect against loss, misuse, and unauthorized access. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

9. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy, to maintain our ministry records, and to comply with our legal obligations, after which we take reasonable steps to delete or de-identify it. Two categories are deliberately different: records of chat assistant conversations are kept for about a month and then removed automatically, while messages of condolence written for a bereaved family are kept, because they are written to be kept.

10. Payments and Donations

Our Site does not collect or process any payments or donations directly. Giving and other digital payments are handled through our third-party church-management platform, OneChurch Software, under its own terms and privacy policy. Any payment or account information you provide for giving is submitted to and handled by OneChurch, not by our Site, and we encourage you to review OneChurch's privacy policy before transacting.

11. Third-Party Services and Links

Our Site links to and integrates with third-party services, including YouTube (for sermon videos and livestreams), Facebook and Instagram (for social-media content), OneChurch Software (for our members' login portal and giving), Cloudflare and Resend (which receive and deliver our forms, and which also support our chat assistant), Formspree (backup delivery for those forms), Contentful (the system our staff use to manage this Site), Google Fonts (for the Site's typefaces), and — where our automated chat assistant is enabled — Anthropic and Twilio. These services are operated by third parties and governed by their own privacy policies and terms. We encourage you to review those policies. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of any third-party website or service.

Our Facebook posts do not track you. The posts from our Facebook Page shown on our homepage are fetched by us in advance and stored on our own servers, including the images. There is no Facebook plug-in, script, or embedded frame on the page, so simply viewing that section sends nothing to Meta and does not identify you to them. That only changes if you choose to click through to Facebook. Our Instagram feed is different: it is displayed by a third-party widget (Elfsight), which does load content from its own and Instagram's servers when you reach that part of the page.

12. Children's Privacy

Our Site is intended for a general audience and is not directed to children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 through our Site without verifiable parental consent. Information relating to minors who participate in our children's and youth ministries is collected with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian. If you believe a child has provided us personal information without parental consent, please contact us and we will take appropriate steps to remove it.

13. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on your state of residence, and to the extent applicable privacy laws apply to us, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, which may include the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of the personal information we hold about you, and the right to opt out of certain uses. Because we do not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising, many such requests may not apply. To exercise any right that may be available to you, please contact us at info@ipctabernacledallas.org. We will respond consistent with applicable law and may need to verify your identity before fulfilling your request.

14. Do Not Track

Our Site does not respond to "Do Not Track" signals from web browsers because a common industry standard for these signals has not been established. As noted above, we do not use first-party tracking cookies.

15. Property Protection and Enforcement

Our church property — including our campus, buildings, grounds, equipment, technology, website, and online platforms — is protected by law. Any attempt to damage, deface, vandalize, tamper with, gain unauthorized access to, or otherwise harm our property, whether physical or digital, is strictly prohibited. Such conduct may result in civil and/or criminal action, and IPC Tabernacle Dallas reserves the right to pursue prosecution and to seek all remedies available to the fullest extent permitted by law.

16. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last Updated" date above. Material changes will be reflected on this page, and your continued use of the Site or participation in our activities after such changes indicates your acknowledgment of the updated Policy.

17. Contact Us

If you have any questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us:

IPC Tabernacle Dallas, Inc.
(also known as Indian Pentecostal Church Tabernacle Dallas, Inc.)
9121 Ferguson Road, Dallas, TX 75228
Email: info@ipctabernacledallas.org