Pastoral Care Integration

Build Pastoral Care into your app

The Pastoral Care API gives a signed-in member the same confidential workflows available in TheFaithApp mobile app:

Share, review, edit, and withdraw a care request.
See member-safe status, visit, support-plan, and timeline information.
Manage consent for private follow-up.
Save or pause a private life-moment date.
Create a quiet-day window for sensitive seasons.

Pastoral Care carries sensitive personal information. Never send request details, private dates, contact values, quiet-day reasons, or member guidance to analytics, crash reporting, application logs, push-notification payloads, or AI services.

Authentication

Every Pastoral Care call requires the partner app key and the signed-in member’s access token:

X-API-Key: your-client-api-key
Authorization: Bearer your-member-access-token
Accept: application/json
Content-Type: application/json

The app key and member token must resolve to the same church. A mismatch returns 401 Unauthorized. Follow the Hosted Auth guide before integrating these endpoints.

Published endpoints

The public contract mirrors the Pastoral Care calls used by TheFaithApp mobile app.

Member action	Endpoint
Load requests and form options	`GET /v1/care-requests`
Share a request	`POST /v1/care-requests`
Edit an open request	`PUT /v1/care-requests/{careRequest}`
Withdraw an open request	`POST /v1/care-requests/{careRequest}/withdraw`
Load preferences, private dates, and quiet days	`GET /v1/care-life-moments`
Update consent and contact preferences	`PUT /v1/care-life-moments/preferences`
Add a private date	`POST /v1/care-life-moments/moments`
Update or pause a private date	`PUT /v1/care-life-moments/moments/{careLifeMoment}`
Permanently remove a private date	`DELETE /v1/care-life-moments/moments/{careLifeMoment}`
Add a quiet day	`POST /v1/care-life-moments/suppressions`
Update or deactivate a quiet day	`PUT /v1/care-life-moments/suppressions/{careCommunicationSuppression}`
Permanently remove a quiet day	`DELETE /v1/care-life-moments/suppressions/{careCommunicationSuppression}`

Staff notes, staff tasks, resolution notes, Care Radar review signals, coverage rotations, availability, rite runsheets, preaching plans, and staff coordination are not public partner endpoints.

Recommended app flow

Load the member's care home

Call GET /v1/care-requests. Keep the returned options with the screen; they are the allowed values for care type, privacy, urgency, and contact method.The list contains active and past requests. Use can_edit and can_withdraw to decide which actions to display.

Let the member review the privacy boundary

Explain care_team and pastoral_only before submission. Counseling, benevolence, and crisis requests are always restricted to pastoral staff, even if the app sends care_team.

Collect explicit contact consent

Send contact_consent: true only after the member actively confirms that the church care team may contact them.For phone, text, or email contact, contact_value may be omitted when the signed-in member profile already has the matching value.

Handle urgent requests responsibly

For urgency: "urgent" or type: "crisis_support", show a clear notice that Pastoral Care is not an emergency service. Submit emergency_acknowledged: true only after the member confirms the notice.

Refresh after a mutation

Use the care request returned by create, update, or withdraw immediately, then refresh GET /v1/care-requests when the screen resumes or receives a generic care-status notification.

curl -X POST https://api.thefaithapp.com/v1/care-requests \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-client-api-key" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-member-access-token" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "type": "hospital_visit",
    "privacy": "care_team",
    "urgency": "soon",
    "details": "Please arrange a hospital visit later this week.",
    "contact_preference": "phone",
    "contact_consent": true
  }'

A successful create returns 201 Created and the new record in data.care_request.

Care types

Use the values returned in data.options.types. The current values are:

Value	Member-facing meaning
`general_care`	General care
`hospital_visit`	Hospital visit
`home_visit`	Home visit
`new_baby_support`	New-baby support
`counseling`	Counseling
`benevolence`	Benevolence
`grief_support`	Grief support
`illness_support`	Illness support
`crisis_support`	Crisis support
`pastoral_follow_up`	Pastoral follow-up
`wedding_preparation`	Wedding preparation
`baby_dedication`	Baby dedication
`funeral_support`	Funeral support
`relocation_support`	Relocation support
`pastoral_recommendation`	Pastoral recommendation

Render a request safely

Each care request can include:

status, urgency, and whether a caregiver is assigned.
next_follow_up_at when the care team has scheduled a follow-up.
Member-visible visit times, location, instructions, and outcome.
Member-visible support-plan dates, coordinator, and requested support.
A reduced timeline of safe workflow events.
content_purged when confidential content has reached the end of retention.

The response intentionally omits staff notes, staff tasks, internal review activity, coverage handoffs, and private resolution summaries.

There is no public single-request GET endpoint. Keep the selected item from GET /v1/care-requests, and refresh the list when current data is needed.

Edit and withdraw

PUT /v1/care-requests/{careRequest} is a full form update. Send all required request fields, not only the changed field. Use POST /v1/care-requests/{careRequest}/withdraw only after a confirmation step. Withdrawal is final. The response sets can_edit and can_withdraw to false. Resolved, withdrawn, and retention-purged requests cannot be edited.

Member-controlled follow-up

Call GET /v1/care-life-moments to load:

preferences: current consent and contact choices.
life_moments: private dates owned by the member.
suppressions: the member’s quiet-day windows.
options: the supported enum values for your controls.

All reminder and Care Radar consent starts disabled.

Update preferences

Preference updates are partial. Send only the settings the member changed:

curl -X PUT https://api.thefaithapp.com/v1/care-life-moments/preferences \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-client-api-key" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-member-access-token" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "reminders_enabled": true,
    "grief_follow_up_enabled": true,
    "hard_anniversary_follow_up_enabled": true,
    "contact_preference": "text",
    "acknowledgment_style": "ask_first"
  }'

Enabling a specific kind does not bypass the master reminders_enabled setting. Care Radar participation and Community Group participation follow-up also require their own separate member choices.

Save a private life moment

curl -X POST https://api.thefaithapp.com/v1/care-life-moments/moments \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-client-api-key" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-member-access-token" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "kind": "grief_anniversary",
    "status": "active",
    "title": "Remember Mum",
    "event_date": "2026-09-14",
    "recurrence": "yearly",
    "reminder_lead_days": 7,
    "member_note": "Please ask before calling."
  }'

One-time dates must be today or later. Yearly dates can retain an earlier calendar year because the next reminder is calculated from the next anniversary. Set status: "paused" to keep the private date without creating pending follow-up. DELETE permanently removes the date and its pending reminders.

Create a quiet day

curl -X POST https://api.thefaithapp.com/v1/care-life-moments/suppressions \
  -H "X-API-Key: your-client-api-key" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-member-access-token" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "topic": "all_celebrations",
    "starts_on": "2026-09-01",
    "ends_on": "2026-09-30",
    "pastoral_acknowledgment": true,
    "reason": "A sensitive family season.",
    "member_guidance": "A private text from a pastor is welcome."
  }'

New quiet days are active by default. The end date must be on or after the start date. Setting active: false keeps the preference for later reuse; deleting it removes the record permanently.

Error handling

Status	Meaning for Pastoral Care
`401`	API key or member token is missing, invalid, expired, or belongs to another church.
`404`	The resource does not exist or is not owned by the signed-in member.
`422`	Required values, consent, date rules, enum values, or emergency acknowledgment failed validation.
`429`	The partner API rate limit was reached. Honor `Retry-After` and retry with backoff.

Treat 404 as a final resource miss. Do not reveal whether the identifier belongs to another member or church. Display validation messages beside their matching fields, but keep raw request payloads out of logs and support diagnostics.

Integration checklist

Use hosted member sign-in and keep both credentials in secure storage.
Build controls from the returned option arrays instead of hard-coding them.
Require explicit contact consent.
Show the non-emergency notice for urgent and crisis requests.
Use can_edit and can_withdraw from the API response.
Do not add Pastoral Care payloads to offline caches or analytics.
Clear sensitive view state when the member signs out or changes church.
Use generic push-notification copy and fetch current data after the member opens the app.
Test with two members and two churches to verify ownership boundaries.

List care requests

Review the complete response contract and try the request.

Load care preferences

See private dates, quiet days, and supported option values.

Get Started

Endpoints

Build Pastoral Care into your app

Authentication

Published endpoints

Recommended app flow

Care types

Render a request safely

Edit and withdraw

Member-controlled follow-up

Update preferences

Save a private life moment

Create a quiet day

Error handling

Integration checklist

List care requests

Load care preferences

​Build Pastoral Care into your app

​Authentication

​Published endpoints

​Recommended app flow

​Share a care request

​Care types

​Render a request safely

​Edit and withdraw

​Member-controlled follow-up

​Update preferences

​Save a private life moment

​Create a quiet day

​Error handling

​Integration checklist

List care requests

Load care preferences

Build Pastoral Care into your app

Authentication

Published endpoints

Recommended app flow

Share a care request

Care types

Render a request safely

Edit and withdraw

Member-controlled follow-up

Update preferences

Save a private life moment

Create a quiet day

Error handling

Integration checklist