Frequently Asked Questions
The common questions about the assessment, the subscriptions, consent and privacy, the surveys, and walking the pathway as a church. Read these before you sign up so the way sharing and consent works is clear.
New to all this?
Yes. There is a whole reading path written for someone exploring faith for the first time — no account, no cost, and no pressure. It starts with An Invitation to Life, a short, plain-language introduction to the Christian story, and you can read at your own pace for as long as you like.
Start at the seeker page →No, and no. Every document on this site is free to read without an account, so we never ask for your email just to read — and no one will call, write, or follow you up. A free account is only needed if you choose to take the Spiritual Gifts Assessment or want your reading progress saved across devices.
The Bible teaches that God's Spirit gives every believer particular abilities — teaching, serving, encouraging, giving, leading, showing mercy, and more — given for the good of others, never for status. This site helps people discover which of the eighteen gifts described in Scripture they carry, and where those gifts could serve. The field guide explains each one in plain language.
Browse the 18 gifts →If you are exploring Christianity, start with An Invitation to Life and then the Good News — the two shortest, plainest readings on the site. If you are already a Christian, the Discover-your-gifts journey is the front door.
An Invitation to Life →The pathway & the pattern
Because that is the order of the early church, not a sales funnel. A saint is discerned, a household disciples one another, an eldership shepherds and plans together, and a church makes itself transparent. Each level is a further step into the same biblical pattern — priced simply to keep it self-carrying and accountable, never to earn the most.
Because Christ-led Flat Governance means no central administrator holding the keys. Each elder subscribes on their own card, the way they'd buy their own books — so no single account, or person, can capture or switch off the church's access. It also keeps the church's central cost low: only the Engaged Church plan ever touches the church budget.
Yes — through Church Sponsorship, part of an Engaged Church membership. A church that wants its whole eldership on the Platform can offer to cover each elder's subscription: in full, so it is free to the elder, or the elder may choose to contribute a share, so it is simply discounted. It is opt-in on both sides — the church offers, the elder accepts — and covering the cost never changes the control. The elder keeps their own login and workspace, still manages their own subscription, and can decline, contribute, or end the arrangement at any time, at which point it simply reverts to self-pay. The gift covers the cost and nothing more: the church gains no extra visibility or say over a sponsored elder's account.
See the full Church Sponsorship page →No. All the readings and the entire Framework are free to read on-site, forever — every saint walks the full journey free. The paid plans are never for the teaching; they are the tools that bring order and structure to coordinate the works of the ministry — matching saints to their gifts, planning and funding the year, and governing openly — and they cover the real cost of carrying the Platform: keeping it running, building new features, and extending it to more churches over time. Beyond that, the longer aim is a movement of revival that supports itself: not dependent on any one donor or personality, but self-sustaining and self-multiplying, so it keeps advancing well beyond its founders. In time, the vision is a Foundation whose sole purpose is to advance the growth of Christ's Church. The price isn't there to enrich anyone — it's there to build something that lasts and gives itself away.
The basics
The Framework is the teaching — the Sonrise Revival Series itself: the documents, the theology of the gifts and the eighteen profiles, the household, the eldership and five-fold, the annual plan, and the governance pattern. It is the biblical blueprint — what Scripture says and how a church recovers it. The entire Framework and all its content is free to read on-site. Faithfully held, it will enable any church to operate as the early church did. The Platform creates the administrative order to keep it all on track. The Platform is the software that makes the Framework workable — the tools that carry the pattern into the life of a real congregation: the interactive assessment and results, the body-wide gifts picture, the benchmark surveys and dashboards, communications, the template library, the Ministry Planning Portal, the evaluation and annual Impact Report, and the Engaged Church mark. These are the tools that bring order and structure to coordinate the works of the ministry — and they are what a subscription provides. In short: the Framework is the pattern to read and understand — free; the Platform is the set of tools to run it together as a body — the paid part.
We do — and nothing here stands over Scripture or adds a word to it. The Bible is complete and is the final authority; Sonrise Revival exists only to help the Church live out what it already commands. And Scripture itself tells us we were never meant to walk it out alone. “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17). “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds… encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24-25). Faith is stirred in us through one another — the same reason we still gather to hear preaching even though we each own a Bible: “faith comes from hearing… the word about Christ” (Romans 10:17). This is the very work Peter names: “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:5). A church is not built in a moment but through a process — gifts discerned, saints shaped and joined together.
So the Framework does not replace the Bible; it complements it, drawing Scripture's own pattern for the Church into one clear picture. And the Platform is simply the means — as a sermon carries the Word to you in season, and a car carries you where you already needed to go — taking a church into work that would otherwise be slow and more difficult: discovering gifts, ordering the body, and building one another up as living stones. Scripture’s own charge is to “stir up” — to “fan into flame” — the gift of God in each believer (2 Timothy 1:6); the Framework gives the understanding and the Platform gives the process to do exactly that, together, as a body — the readying of a people before the fire.
Explore the Before the Fire Discovery Course → →Yes, you can see all of it first. It helps to separate three things: the inputs (the courses, assessments, surveys and templates — the means), the outputs (the concrete things you finish holding), and the outcomes (what God works through them in people and community). The outputs are what most people want to see. For a Saint that is a discerned set of gifts, confirmed in community, and a sense of calling. For an eldership it is a gift map of the whole body, a program-by-program review, a gap register, a scoped plan for every ministry with its minimum, ideal and stretch, a published priority ladder, a recorded plan vote, an allocation showing what each work was funded at and what was deferred, and a signed Ministry Works Agreement for every Saint serving.
Every one of those is shown, screen by screen, on the outputs page — built by the Platform for Grace Community Church, a fictional congregation with a full year of data seeded into the Platform. Better still, a free account lets you walk the demonstration church yourself: it opens every subscription level (Family, Elder and Engaged Church alike), so you can step into a lead pastor's seat, an elder's, or an ordinary Saint's and see exactly what each of them sees. It is read-only, so nothing you click there changes anything.
See what each stage produces → →Yes. Every individual gets the full five-movement journey — assessment, results, reflections, community confirmation and your calling — free, forever, with no card and no time limit. The paid tiers only add the management and sharing layers (Family, Elder, Engaged Church).
Yes. Every paid plan — Family, Elder, and Engaged Church — comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee: a full refund of your first payment if you cancel within 14 days of subscribing, no questions asked. Refunds are returned to your original payment method. The Framework itself is always free, so there is never any risk in trying the Platform.
Yes, and it's all free. Every page has an A / A / A text-size control in the top corner that enlarges the whole site, and your choice is remembered between visits. Every teaching and document page can also be read aloud: open a document and press the Listen button near the top, and your own device reads the page to you in its built-in voice — press again to pause or resume, and Stop to finish. A 'Voice & speed' panel lets you slow the reading down (or speed it up) and choose a different voice, and your choices are remembered. It needs no account, works on phones, tablets and computers, and nothing you read leaves your device. The whole Framework is also compiled into five volumes you can print at home or read on paper. And if someone can't use a computer at all, Proxy Support lets a trusted, consented helper complete their journey with them.
See all the accessibility options →No. Your assessment, results, reflections and journals are yours alone by default. Nothing is shared with your household or your eldership unless you choose to share it, and you can stop sharing at any time. (The one exception is a child in a family group, whose parent or guardian can view their journey — see the Family section.)
It's your own longitudinal view, free in every Individual account. Each time you finish the assessment you can choose to archive a snapshot — your gifts, your calling, and a quick 'how much do you have to give this season?' capacity check. Over the years it charts how your gifts grow and settle across the seasons of life. You choose when to save one (about once a year is ideal, but it's up to you), and you can delete any snapshot with a two-step confirm.
Yes — it's built into the Explore step and free. Enter up to three postcodes near your home or church and the Platform pulls the local Census figures straight in: population, age profile, the faith landscape (Christian, no religion, other faiths), cultural and language mix, and health & care needs — combined across your postcodes, so you can pray over the community around you. It's live for Australian postcodes (via the ABS); for other countries there are direct look-up links to the national statistics office.
Every web tool has a manual twin — the Excel workbooks and survey benchmark workbooks are fully downloadable and self-calculating, so a church can use the whole Framework offline if it prefers.
Yes — that's Church Sponsorship, part of an Engaged Church membership. The individual journey is free for everyone; on top of that, a church can choose to cover the Family and Elder memberships for its saints, so cost is never a barrier — especially as a way to advocate for stronger families. The church always offers to cover the whole cost (a member may optionally contribute a share if they wish, but is never asked to), and it is opt-in on both sides. Sponsorship covers the cost only: the church gains no extra visibility or control, and the member keeps their own account and full control throughout.
See the full Church Sponsorship page →Because the Framework is meant to capture the gifts of the whole church, not only those at ease with a screen — and some of the most faithful saints in a congregation have never used a computer or email. Rather than leave them outside the process, Proxy Support lets a trusted family member or friend complete their journey with them, so their gifts and calling are captured and honoured alongside everyone else's. It is built with heavy safeguards precisely because acting on another's behalf is a serious trust: two consents to begin (the saint's and an elder's in-person witness), a helper who works only through their own login and only from what the saint has given them, full attribution, and the saint keeping control of their own account throughout. It is free at every level — the only requirement is that the church's eldership is on the Platform to witness and oversee it.
See the full Proxy Support page →It is a standing ten-week course that takes a believer from faith to their place in the body. Where a course like Alpha introduces someone to Jesus, the Discovery Course is the natural next step: over ten weeks it walks every believer through the Framework — the vision God is working toward, that every believer is a minister, discerning the gifts the Spirit has given, where those gifts are sent, and how the whole body plans and serves together under Christ the Head — ending in a commissioning. It is the same ten-week journey either run as a mid-week small-group course or preached as the Sunday “Before the Fire” series. Weeks 1–5 are the gift-discovery core and weeks 6–10 open into the whole Framework, and each cohort finishes just before the church's annual closing week so newcomers can step into their first cycle. The course, its facilitator guide and the online tools come with an Elder membership; the Sunday preaching mode and church-wide tools come with Engaged Church.
See the Discovery Course page →It's a living, members-only directory that shows how your church is actually functioning — who serves in which program, and who shepherds them. It comes with Engaged Church, and it fills itself: nothing is entered by hand. As elders come on, saints join, the annual plan is finalised and Ministry Works Agreements are signed, the picture builds automatically. It's the evidence of the body's health by its function. Elders appear leading by doing — tagged as elders, with the ministries they themselves serve in shown alongside the saints in their care. It is for the body to know one another and learn together, so everyone is shown by default with a one-click opt-out; anyone who opts out still appears in their role as 'A fellow saint', so the picture stays whole without exposing them. It is members-only — never public — and a guardian sets it for a young person.
Scripture throughout the Series is quoted from the New King James Version (NKJV), chosen because it stays close to the wording of the original texts while remaining clear to read — and because, in several key passages, it preserves words the argument turns on that some modern translations smooth over. The Framework is not a replacement for the Bible, so we warmly encourage you to read the passages we cite in your own Bible, and to compare other faithful translations — the NIV, ESV, CSB and others. Reading a verse in more than one translation often opens its meaning further, and Scripture itself, in whatever faithful version you hold, remains the authoritative word above anything written here.
Consent & privacy
Sharing is always opt-in and never automatic. To share with your household or your eldership you open an invitation link, read a plain disclosure of exactly what is and isn't shared, then tick a box and press a button to confirm — a deliberate two-step, so it can't happen by accident.
Only your confirmed top-three gifts and your declared calling. Your reflection journals, your couple or courtship comparisons, and any other private content are never shared — not with your household, and not with the eldership. The one exception is a child in a family group: a parent or guardian can view a child's full journey (openly disclosed to the child), because part of the Family subscription is helping parents disciple their children.
Yes, at any time and with one tap. In the household, 'leave' stops your sharing. For an eldership, your Elder Share Card (in your own space) lists everyone you share with and lets you stop sharing instantly.
No. Elders see a read-only view for prayer and planning. Member information can't be downloaded, printed, copied or exported anywhere in the Platform. The only printable outputs are the eldership's own aggregate planning documents.
The Communications channels (an elder with the group they shepherd, and the elders and deacons together) are conversations kept inside the Platform, not emails — the email or text you receive is only a notification with a link, and no one ever sees anyone's address or number. You can archive a conversation (kept, but hidden from the active list) or delete it outright, and anyone can delete their own messages at any time. Left untouched, group and eldership conversations are archived after 12 months of quiet and removed after 24; a private note to an elder is removed after 12 months; testimonies are kept. If someone leaves the church, their messages are removed. It is not a place for anything confidential — a deacon assisting an elder can see it — so for private care, speak in person or use the Restoration Conversation.
Only the two people in it. Not the eldership, not a household owner, not a guardian, not an administrator — no part of the Platform joins a conversation to any other view. Within it, each person's private preparation (what you decided it meant, your own part, your real motive) is never shown to the other; they see only the answers the tool asks you to share. Either of you can withdraw anything you wrote, or delete the whole conversation outright — alone, immediately, without the other's agreement and without giving a reason. There are no read receipts and no 'typing…' signals. It is closed to under-18s.
The written guide is, always: on a free Individual account you can fill it in on screen, save it, and download it to Word or PDF to work through on paper. The guided online version — where you invite the other person by email and the Platform walks the two of you through the nine rounds, keeping each side's private preparation private — comes with the Family, Elder or Engaged Church subscription. One deliberate exception: the person you invite never needs a subscription, and can take part on a free account. You should never have to pay to be reconciled to someone.
No, and it must never be used as one. It is a tool for a quarrel between two people who are both safe. It is not a procedure for abuse, violence, a sexual offence, coercive control, or any crime. In those cases protect the person at risk first and report the matter to the police — reporting is obedience, not a failure of grace (Romans 13:1–4). Gentleness toward an opponent is never silence about a predator. The tool says so on every screen before you can write a word, and each person must read that warning on their own screen, not inherit it from the other.
Yes — this is Proxy Support. An older or less tech-confident saint can ask a trusted family member or friend from their church to be their 'helper' (a proxy) and complete their journey for them. It is deliberately safeguarded: the saint keeps their own account and can log in, pause, or remove their helper at any time; it only starts once the saint consents and an elder witnesses that consent in person; the helper works through their own login (never the saint's), enters only what the saint has written on paper or said in person, and everything they do is signed with their name in a line-by-line record the saint and their elder can both read. A helper can never open the saint's Conflict & Restoration or any couple / relationship content — those stay private to the saint. The witness re-confirms each year. It is for adults (children are cared for through the Family guardian arrangement instead), and it is free at every level — the only requirement is that your church's eldership is on the Platform to witness it.
See the full Proxy Support page →Yes, if both churches are on the Platform and have chosen to link, and you opt in to see partner-church opportunities (it's off by default). You stay under your own church and eldership the whole time — serving elsewhere is not joining elsewhere. Nothing about you is ever sent to the other church until you say so, in two clear steps. First, if an opportunity interests you, you simply flag it to your own elder — nothing leaves your church. If you consent, your elder puts you forward, sharing only your first name, your top three gifts, and your short note. The two elders talk it through. Only if it's a good fit, and only after you consent a second time, are your full contact details (name, phone, email) shared so the other church can reach you. You can withdraw at any stage, and your own elder shepherds you throughout. For anyone under 18, a guardian manages this and acts on their behalf.
You are always in control. Your consent to a church is the switch over your information: while it stands, that eldership can see what you've shared; if you withdraw your consent, your access and records are removed from that eldership, and any partner-church referrals in progress close. Grant it again and it returns. Membership never moves automatically — to move fully to another church you simply withdraw consent from one and accept an invitation from the other.
The Family subscription
Each member keeps their own free account; the Family subscription simply adds a shared layer. You create a household, invite members by email, and once they consent you can see and pray for one another's confirmed gifts and calling. It is $9.95 a month for the whole household — one subscription covers up to ten household members.
Anyone under 18 takes part only as a member of a family account, with a parent or guardian's consent, and has age-appropriate, restricted visibility. A parent marks a household member as a child in the family workspace. Because a child takes part inside your household, a parent or guardian can also walk their whole journey with them (see the next question). Couple and courtship content is never shared with children, siblings, guardians or the church.
Yes — for a household member you've marked as a child, you can open their full journey in read-only form: their gifts, calling and ranked results, every reflection and journal, their community confirmations, and their Season History. It's read-only — you can revisit each step together, but never change their work. This oversight applies only to children, and it's disclosed to the child as they write (and to the people they invite to confirm their gifts), so nothing is hidden. It's the one exception to 'your journals stay private' — and it exists so parents can genuinely disciple their children.
Yes. The household owner is always a guardian. The owner can appoint another adult in the household (a second parent) as a guardian too, so you both have the same read-only oversight of the children — and each guardian is named on the child's page so everyone can see who has access. The owner can remove a guardian at any time.
A child can't leave the household on their own — a parent or guardian releases them. On the child's card there's a 'Release from the household' button with a two-step confirmation; releasing them removes them from the household and hands full control of their now-independent account back to them. It's the intended path for when a child becomes an adult.
A child can never give that consent themselves. When an eldership invites a young person, the request doesn't take effect — instead it appears in the parent's family workspace, waiting for the parent or guardian to tick a box and approve it on the child's behalf. Even then, the elder sees only the child's name and confirmed gifts (and, for the shepherding elder, the child's account email) — never a phone number or home address. The Platform suppresses a minor's contact details by design, and the elder's view shows a 'Child — reach them through their parent' note. A parent can stop the sharing at any time.
Always. A married or courting couple's comparison is confidential to the two people involved — never seen by parents, siblings, other members or the eldership.
Elder & Engaged Church
Each elder subscribes personally ($24.95/month) and gets an Elder workspace. The first elder names the church; other elders join it. Members consent to share their confirmed gifts and calling, and the eldership sees an aggregate gifts picture for annual planning — read-only and never exported. There is no central church account and no central administrator, by design.
Each elder has a pool of 30 invitations, and the pool is shared across the eldership — so capacity scales with the team of elders. A church with three subscribed elders can invite up to ninety members or families.
Yes. Each elder can nominate one deacon, who signs in with their own personal email and gains the same church view as the elder they assist. The diaconate therefore grows with the eldership — a church with two elders can have two deacons, a church with ten can have ten — and there is no extra charge for a deacon's access. A deacon can invite members, send reminder notifications, and keep church details current — the administrative and operational work — on the eldership's behalf. They cannot manage billing or open or close the account; that stays with the elder. Because the deacon uses their own account, every action is recorded as theirs, which strengthens accountability rather than blurring it.
Coordinating hundreds of people through the annual planning process is a real and heavy load. The Framework follows the pattern of Acts 6: deacons are trusted, selected saints — drawn from the eldership and the Five-Fold ministry and released into a supporting role — who take on the administrative and operational burdens so that the pastors and elders can stay focused on shepherding the body. Sharing that workload isn't a lesser task; it's what keeps the elders free to do what only they should do, and it's why the deacon's supporting role is treated as critical, not optional.
Yes — the Communications tool lets an eldership send group email, SMS, and meeting invites to the consented saints, all from the workspace. You write once and choose the channels; the recipient list is built automatically from the members who've opted in, so you never type or even see anyone's email or number — it's all sent server-side. Meeting invites attach a calendar file the saint taps to add to their own calendar, and there are ready-made presets for meetings, prayer, survey reminders and general notices. A deacon can send on the eldership's behalf, and every send is logged. An Engaged Church can also message its whole eldership the same way.
Yes, and it's per-channel. A saint opts in to email and/or SMS separately from their Elder Share Card, and can turn either off at any time; every message also carries a one-tap opt-out. The eldership only ever reaches those who have opted in, and never sees the underlying address or number. For the Engaged Church → elders direction, email is on by default for elders (they coordinate as a leadership team) but they can opt out, and SMS stays opt-in. This keeps everything aligned with the Australian Spam Act — consent, a clear sender, and easy unsubscribe.
An additive subscription ($94.95/month, on top of the elders' own subscriptions) that adds the full preaching and training library and the path to the Engaged Church mark — a public, verified sign of open, accountable governance. The mark is earned, not bought: after a qualification period a church publishes a short set of facts on its own website, and once verified it is listed publicly.
It's the planning engine of the year, included with Engaged Church at no extra cost. Every program and team becomes a tile with the specific tasks, time and an evaluation plan it needs. After the ten-week course, saints browse with their elder and express interest in where they could serve. The eldership shapes and finalises the year's plan, the church gives and adopts it together, and each saint's interest becomes a signed Ministry Works Agreement. It carries the confirmed gifts and calling from the course all the way to a placed, agreed plan — then steps back to the church's own administration.
Each ministry sets a simple Evaluation Plan — choosing a few measures that fit its real aims, not just numbers. KPIs don't have to be souls saved or baptisms (though those can be included); they can be witnessing opportunities and meaningful conversations, hours served, Bible studies or courses held, counselling or care sessions, meals delivered, or money spent against what it achieved. The figures and an honest reflection are captured each quarter and the headlines roll up into the church's annual Impact Report. It's a continuous-improvement tool, never performance for its own sake: the detail stays internal, and only high-level metrics are published — for accountability, transparency, and to celebrate what God is doing. This aligns with the Engaged Church mark disclosed openly on the church's own website. A guidance page and a fillable, downloadable plan template are built in.
Sonrise Revival is a gifts & calling identification and annual-planning tool, built in alignment with the early church's rhythm — where the leadership supports the work of the ministry rather than standing over it. That is the heart of the difference: simple, transparent tools that help every saint find their gifts and plan the year together, so that Jesus builds His Church as the Head and no man or woman takes His place. It is the guard-rails, before the Fire, that lead to revival. It is not a project- or ministry-management platform for running ongoing budgets, day-to-day delivery, rosters or operations; once the year's plan is approved and agreements signed, that stays with the church's own administration. We're glad to advise on how it fits your wider processes, and open to suggestions to improve the site.
Yes — it's the Partner Churches feature, part of an Engaged Church membership. Two Engaged churches link by mutual leadership consent (within a denomination, across denominations, or between independent churches — it runs on consent, not labels). Once linked, you choose which of your ministries to share, and a partner church's saints who opt in can see them. If one is interested, it comes to you as an elder-brokered referral: you receive only their first name, top three gifts and a note, you confer with their elder on-platform, and only after the saint's second consent are full contact details released so you can arrange it and draw up a Ministry Works Agreement referencing their home church. It's built for local partnership, not a broadcast network, and either church can end a link at any time. No one's membership ever moves.
Yes. An ABN is optional. A single-elder, small, or unregistered church can use everything here, including the Engaged Church public disclosure, without one. The mark is earned by what you publish openly on your own website — your committee, eldership, five-fold ministers, annual plan status and high-level finances — not by registration. You can add an ABN later if you obtain one. (Donations and book sales are the only features gated on ABN and ACNC registration, for legal reasons.)
The benchmark surveys
Three anonymous, church-wide benchmarks that show how the body understands part of the Framework — the Church Governance Benchmark, the Married Couples Benchmark, and the Courting Couples Benchmark. They give the eldership a combined, honest picture of where the church's understanding sits, so it can discern where to give more teaching, pastoral care and support. Anyone can take the Governance Benchmark for free for their own learning; running one church-wide as a benchmark is the part that comes with Engaged Church membership.
They are for a church family's own internal reflection — to help the eldership discern where to give more teaching and pastoral care. They are not a tool for public comparison, humiliation or boasting, and are not for posting publicly. They exist to build and confirm strong foundations for the work of the ministry, to the glory of Christ and His Church.
Yes. Initiating a church-wide benchmark wave — and seeing the combined results — is an Engaged Church feature. Once a church has Engaged Church membership, every elder and deacon of that church can take part in distributing the wave to their groups. (The free, self-serve Governance Benchmark that any individual can take for their own learning is separate, and needs no subscription.)
The church lead opens a wave — choosing the point in the cycle (a Baseline, then 6- and 12-month follow-ups), an optional title, and a 'complete by' date. Each elder and deacon then forwards that wave to the saints they shepherd, so it can be taken and talked through together in the group. Members receive an anonymous link by email or text (only if they've opted in — contact details are never exposed). Each elder can see how many of their own group have responded and send a reminder to those still to complete it, and the whole eldership sees the church-wide totals and a participation overview.
Results are anonymous and aggregate-only, and there is just one combined, church-wide picture — never a single group's or elder's results. Nothing is shown until at least three people have responded, to protect anonymity. The eldership never sees an individual's answers, a couple's private comparison, or anyone's written reflections. The per-elder 'sent / replied' counters track which group's link a response came through — they count groups, never who a person is.