Where Your Data Lives
Everything is stored on your device and synced through your own private iCloud account. It isn't sent to FerventWord Ministries, and there is no account to create.
What FerventWord Can And Can't See
If you also use FerventWord, our Bible reading app, the two share a small amount of storage on this device. Two things pass through it, and nothing else does.
- A passage you send from FerventWord, on its way to becoming your meditation
- Nothing is sent unless you choose to send it.
- Your current meditation, so FerventWord can show it
- Only the current one. Your history stays here.
Your prayer list, your prayer requests, your notes and your settings are not shared, and FerventWord cannot see them. Neither app can reach the other's storage for anything else, and none of this leaves your device or goes to FerventWord Ministries.
Three Things Sync Separately
- People & Requests
- Your prayer list and prayer requests, which travel together.
- Meditations
- Everything you've written.
- Settings
- Your schedule, reminder times, and preferences.
Each can be turned off on its own under Settings → iCloud Sync, which keeps that part on this device only. Reminder scheduling is always local to each device, so your phone and iPad each work out their own notification times.
Sync Needs iOS 18 Or Later
On iOS 17 nothing syncs. Your prayer list, your requests, your meditations and your settings stay on the device they were written on, and are not sent to iCloud at all. Everything else works exactly as it does anywhere else, and Data & Backups can still save and restore a copy.
The switches on the iCloud Sync screen are shown turned off there, and cannot be changed. If you also use Prayer Mentions on a device running iOS 18 or later, the two devices will keep separate lists until this one is updated — neither can see what the other has.
Why The App Closes When You Change A Sync Setting
Turning a category on or off changes how the app opens its storage, which can only happen at launch. So the app offers to close itself, and you reopen it from the Home Screen. Your change is saved either way — closing later is fine.
It isn't a crash, even though it looks like one.
Sync Now
If something you wrote hasn't reached your other devices, Sync Now retries any writes iCloud hasn't accepted yet. It's safe to use at any time and as often as you like.
Snapshots
The app saves a snapshot of everything about once a day, on its own, and keeps a month of daily ones plus a weekly one going back about three months. You can also save one whenever you like from Settings → Data & Backups.
The share arrow beside a snapshot saves that snapshot out as a file you can keep somewhere else.
Restoring replaces everything currently in the app with the contents of that snapshot. The app writes a fresh backup first, then closes — reopen it and the restore finishes as it starts up. That closing is expected.
Getting Your Writing Out
Settings → Data & Backups → Export Meditations as Text gives you every meditation you've saved as plain text, dated, in one file.
For everything else, a snapshot file is the complete copy.
There's no spreadsheet or CSV import or export — worth saying, so it isn't something you go looking for.
Adding People From Contacts
Contacts import lives in the Add Person screen rather than under Data & Backups. Tap + on the People tab, allow access once, and you can bring in as many people as you like at a time.