Privacy Policy

This site collects information from you, about you, and about your activities when you use this site. This privacy policy states the nature of such information, describes how we collect that information and what we do with that information once we have collected it. The purpose of this policy is two-fold: This policy is intended to protect your privacy by setting limits on our activities with this site. This policy is an operational document that controls the design and use of interactive systems that this site may offer.

Information that this site collects

The information that we collect through this site may be roughly grouped into two broad catagories.

The first is "identifying information" and the second is "non-identifying information". These two catagories are described below. They are collected and handled differently. Some information overlaps between the two catagories.

Identifying information

Identifying information is information that refers specifically to you and can be used to relate uniquely to you. We colllect such information directly from you when you provide that information directly to us.

Such information can include, for example, your name, your contact information including address and phone number, the nature of a request that you make to us, or information that you voluntarily provide to us. When collecting information from you in order to fulfill a request that you make, we will require only the minimum information required to fulfull your request but may give you the ability to provide additional information. We will only insist on the required information and will process your request with that information.

Non-identifying information

Non-identifying information is information that does not refer directly to you. It cannot be used to relate directly to you in most situations, but see the "Exceptions" below. This information typically describes the use of this web site by the world at large and normally appears as statistical summaries of site usage. We collect such information as part of the normal operation of the web site.

Use of Information

Identifying information

We use identifying information to fulfill a request that you make. That request might be, for example, to offer special prayer for your situation or to lift up praise for an answered prayer, to answer a question that you might have about the church or one of our ministries, to request some other service, or to share information with the church or the church family. In all such cases, you have the option of simply cancelling the request.

United Methodism is an "organizational" denomination. This means that this church is tightly integrated with other United Methodist churches and with several governing bodies within the denomination. We might share certain information with our partner churches, district management or conference.

Non-identifying information

Non-identifying information is mostly technical in nature and is used for technical purposes. Such uses include analysis of traffic through the web site, analysis of page "popularity", identifying types of computers and browsers most commonly used to access the website and identifying possible special needs of some browsers.

Exceptions

This privacy policy is designed to protect the privacy of visitors to this site and users of the site's features. However, some exceptions can apply. Those exceptions are noted here.

We are commanded to honor our government. If we are served with a valid order to surrender information from this web site, we will comply with that order.

If we become aware, or believe in good faith, that a crime has been committed that somehow involves this web site, we will give copies of the appropriate information to the proper authorities.

In both of these cases, you should be aware that information that this normally "non-identifying" could become "identifying" when combined with other clues in an investigation.

You should also be aware that the Internet is a public medium for exchange of information and that your use of this or any other web site can be monitored by unknown third parties. We have no control over the activities of those third parties.

Notes

As with all things on the Internet, this policy can change. If it does change, an alert to that fact will prominently appear on the opening page of this web site. The updated policy will be published on this site and will be effective as soon as it is published.