A group meets for two hours. The rest of the week is where it lives.

Emberside holds the week in between. A request stays open until the person who made it says otherwise, and when somebody has quietly stopped coming, one leader hears about it while there is still something to do.

Emberside’s own site closes on a line from Galatians 6:2: carry each other. The whole app is built around that being a thing a group does rather than a thing an app measures.

See Emberside’s own site How the plan works

Emberside’s Prayer and Praise screen: two requests the group is carrying, each with its later updates and the people standing with the person who asked, and two more the group is still praying about. — The prayer wall

The sheet a person gets when they close their own request, headed Where is this now. Three choices: God answered, which moves it to Praises; it went another way, which stays open and stops the asking; and still praying, just an update. — Closing a request

A leader’s home screen: the next gathering, three requests nobody has prayed for in five days, one of them in another group, and a prompt to name a co-leader. — A leader’s home

The leader’s circle for a group of twelve, with a reason beside each name: said yes to the last four and did not make it, quiet for three weeks, prayer unanswered seventeen days. A footnote says it is built from turning up, RSVPs and what people post, never from app opens or read receipts. — Who to reach out to

A group’s calendar: six Tuesdays through Romans a chapter at a time, plus a cookout at the park and a serve day at the food bank, each with its date, time, place and how many have signed up. — The weeks ahead

What it holds

Prayer that behaves like a group, not a to-do list.

Requests stay open until the person closes them

Not when a week passes and not when a leader tidies up. What the group prayed for on Tuesday is still there on Thursday, and the card shows how many people are standing with them. One of the ways to close it is it went another way, which stops the asking and leaves the request standing.

The gathering, in one place

The date, the address, who has said they are coming, the passage, and anything else people need to know. Nobody cooks for fourteen when nine are coming.

The week’s reading, and the lesson

A leader can set the passage and attach Thread lessons to a gathering, so the group has both on their phones before you meet.

A place to talk that is not the group text

Threads for the group, and side conversations only the two people in them can read. Someone saying the thing they did not want on the wall should be able to.

The part worth being careful about

When somebody has gone quiet, their leader sees it.

People do not usually announce that they are drifting. They miss a week, then another, and by the time anyone notices it has been two months and nobody meant it to happen. Emberside gives the leader one name and one call worth making.

Because that is the feature most worth being careful about, here is exactly what it does and does not do.

It watches six ordinary things

Turning up to a gathering a leader marked, saying whether you are coming, asking for prayer, praying for somebody else, posting an update, and sending a message. Not app opens, not read receipts, not location.

It answers who to call, not who is doing best

Nobody is measured against anybody else. Each name arrives with its own reason: said yes to the last two and did not make it, or quiet for three weeks, or a prayer nobody has said anything about in nine days. The list is the leader’s alone, and members never see it.

It only knows the app

It can tell a leader somebody has gone quiet in the group. It cannot tell them somebody has gone quiet in church. We would rather say that now than have you find out later.

The church sees counts, never contents

Whoever holds the plan can see how many people are in each group. They cannot read a prayer request, a message, or a roster, and they never will: those are closed to them in the database itself, not just hidden on a screen.

Two minutes

Emberside, walked through.

Coming soon. It will show you the prayer wall, a gathering, and the view a leader gets.

What it cannot show is a month going by, which is the part that matters: the request still standing because nobody filed it away, and the week somebody was noticed early enough for a phone call to be worth making.

Video coming soon.

Emberside comes with Thread, on one plan.

A church buys both together, for everyone it gives a seat to.

How the plan works See Thread