In short: these Services are provided by the Church for the work of the Church. Use them honestly, keep your account to yourself, respect the confidence in which other members' information is held, and tell us if something looks wrong. The sections below set that out properly.
1. Agreement to these Terms
These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) form an agreement between you and The Davidian Seventh-day Adventists Association, an unincorporated Association constituting a Church, together with its affiliates, departments and associations (collectively “Gadsda”, “we”, “us” or “our”).
By accessing or using any of the Services described in section 3 — including by creating an account, signing in, or installing one of our applications — you confirm that you have read, understood and accepted these Terms and our Privacy Statement. If you do not accept them, please do not use the Services.
2. Who we are
The Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church is an unincorporated association constituting a church, with its registered correspondence address at P.O. Box 23738, Waco, TX 76702, United States of America. Questions about these Terms may be sent to info@gadsda.com.
3. Services covered by these Terms
These Terms apply to the whole Gadsda family of websites and applications (each a “Service”, together the “Services”):
| Service | What it is |
|---|---|
| gadsda.com | The public website of the Church — publications, the directory, tithes and offerings, and general information. |
| admin.gadsda.com | The member and administrative database (the “Database”) — membership records, leadership, treasury, human resources, ministerial department records and related administration. |
| writings.gadsda.com | The online library of denominational literature and writings. |
| Gadsda mobile applications | Our applications for Android and iOS, including the member and administrative app distributed through Google Play and the Apple App Store, and our literature and study applications. |
Individual Services may carry additional or more specific rules. Where they do, those additional rules apply alongside these Terms, and prevail over these Terms only to the extent of any direct conflict.
4. Eligibility and your account
Some Services are open to anyone. Others — in particular the Database at admin.gadsda.com — are restricted to members, officers, employees and volunteers of the Church who have been issued credentials.
- You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. Where an account is held on behalf of a child, it must be created and supervised by a parent or guardian.
- Your account is personal to you. Do not share your member number, password, or any one-time code with anyone, including other members and people claiming to be staff.
- You are responsible for everything done through your account. If you believe your account has been used without your permission, change your password and tell us at support@gadsda.com immediately.
- Access rights are granted according to your office or role and may be changed or withdrawn when that office or role changes.
5. Accuracy of records
The Database exists to hold an accurate record of the Church's membership and work. When you enter or amend information — whether about yourself, about another member, or about the work of a department — you agree to do so truthfully and to the best of your knowledge.
Deliberately entering false information, backdating records, or altering another member's record without authority is a serious matter and may result in withdrawal of access and referral to the appropriate Church authority.
6. Confidentiality of member information
It has long been the practice of this Church that correspondence and the particulars of its members are treated in confidence. The Database extends that practice to electronic records.
If your role gives you sight of another member's personal information — their contact details, family particulars, health information, financial or tithing records, employment records, or disciplinary matters — you agree that you will:
- access it only where you have a genuine need to do so for the duty entrusted to you;
- not disclose it to anyone who does not have that same need;
- not copy, export, photograph or retain it outside the Services except where your duty requires it and you have authority to do so;
- and treat it as confidential after your office or employment ends.
7. Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- use the Services for any unlawful purpose, or in breach of any applicable law or regulation;
- attempt to gain access to any account, record, system or data that you have not been granted access to;
- probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Services, or circumvent any security, authentication or rate-limiting measure;
- introduce any virus, worm, malicious code or other harmful material;
- use any robot, scraper, or automated means to extract data from the Services, or to place an unreasonable load on our infrastructure;
- reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any part of our applications, except to the extent that applicable law expressly permits it;
- impersonate any person, or misrepresent your office, role or affiliation;
- upload, post or transmit material that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, harassing, or that infringes another person's rights;
- or use the Services to send unsolicited commercial communications.
8. Content you submit
You keep ownership of the content you submit — documents, photographs, reports, messages and similar material (“Your Content”). By submitting it you grant Gadsda a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, adapt and display Your Content for the purpose of operating the Services and carrying on the work of the Church, and for no other purpose.
You confirm that you have the right to submit Your Content, and that doing so does not infringe anyone else's rights. Where Your Content includes another person's personal information — a photograph of them, or their contact details — you confirm that you have their permission.
We may remove content that in our reasonable judgement breaches these Terms, but we are under no general obligation to monitor or review content.
9. Our content and intellectual property
The Services, and all software, design, text, graphics and compilations within them, are owned by Gadsda or its licensors and are protected by copyright and other laws.
Denominational literature and writings made available through gadsda.com, writings.gadsda.com and our study applications are provided for personal study and for the furtherance of the message. You may read, download and print them for those purposes. You may not sell them, alter their text, or represent them as your own work.
10. Tithes, offerings and payments
Where a Service accepts tithes, offerings or other payments:
- Payments are processed by third-party payment providers. We do not receive or store your full card number.
- You are responsible for the accuracy of the amount and the particulars you submit.
- Tithes and offerings are, by their nature, gifts to the Church and are generally not refundable. If a payment has been made in error, contact info@gadsda.com promptly and we will consider the matter in good faith.
- Receipts issued through the Services are provided for your records. Their treatment for tax purposes depends on the law of your own jurisdiction, on which you should take your own advice.
11. Ecclesiastical matters
The Services are administrative tools. They record decisions; they do not make them. Nothing in the Services, and nothing in these Terms, alters the constitution, discipline, doctrine or governance of the Church, or creates any right of membership, office, employment or benefit. Questions of membership standing, office and discipline are determined by the proper Church authorities through the proper Church channels.
12. Third-party services
The Services link to, and rely on, facilities operated by others — payment providers, mapping and location providers, cloud storage, email delivery and the app stores. We are not responsible for the content or practices of those third parties. Their own terms and privacy policies govern your use of their services, and you should read them.
13. Availability and changes
We aim to keep the Services available, but we do not promise that they will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may add, change, suspend or withdraw any part of the Services, or carry out maintenance, at any time. Where a change is significant and we reasonably can, we will give notice.
14. Suspension and termination
We may suspend or withdraw your access where we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms, where your office or role has ended, or where suspension is necessary to protect the Services or other members. You may stop using the Services at any time, and may ask us to close your account by writing to support@gadsda.com — subject to the records we are required to retain, which are described in our Privacy Statement.
15. Disclaimers
To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Services are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the Services will meet your requirements, that access will be uninterrupted, or that any defect will be corrected. Features that depend on your device — location, camera, calendar, biometrics, notifications — depend on that device and its operating system, and may behave differently or fail on some devices.
16. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, Gadsda and its officers, employees and volunteers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive loss, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of or inability to use the Services.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.
17. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold Gadsda harmless against any claim, loss or expense (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Services, or your infringement of the rights of another person.
18. App store terms
Where you obtain one of our applications from an app store, the following also apply.
Apple App Store
- These Terms are between you and Gadsda only, and not with Apple. Apple is not responsible for the application or its content.
- Apple has no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support for the application.
- In the event the application fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any). To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever.
- Apple is not responsible for addressing any claim by you or a third party relating to the application, including product liability claims, any claim that the application fails to conform to a legal requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection or similar legislation.
- Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.
- You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo, and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
Google Play
- Your use of an application obtained from Google Play is also subject to the Google Play Terms of Service.
- Google is not a party to these Terms and is not responsible for the application.
19. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, United States of America, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Nothing in this section deprives you of the protection of any mandatory consumer-protection law of the country in which you live, or of the right to bring proceedings in your local courts where that right cannot be excluded.
Before commencing any formal proceedings, we ask that you contact us at info@gadsda.com so that we may try to resolve the matter between us.
20. General
- Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Statement are the whole agreement between you and us about the Services.
- Severance. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest continues in force.
- No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision, that is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
- Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor body within the Church.
21. Changes to these Terms
We may revise these Terms from time to time. The revision date at the head of this page will always show when they last changed. Where a change materially affects your rights, we will give notice through the Services or by email. Continuing to use the Services after a change takes effect means you accept the revised Terms.
22. Contact
Questions about these Terms:
- General enquiries: info@gadsda.com
- Database and application support: support@gadsda.com
- Post: The Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church, P.O. Box 23738, Waco, TX 76702, USA
- Telephone: +1-254-855-9539
By using the Gadsda Services you acknowledge that you have read these Terms of Use and agree to be bound by them.