For churches & recovery ministries
Accountability you can recommend
with a clear conscience.
Men's groups, recovery ministries, and pastoral counselors have recommended accountability software for years — and quietly watched people abandon it, because handing a brother your browsing history or screenshots of your phone is a heavier ask than most people can live with for long. Sworn keeps the covenant and drops the surveillance. The filter holds on the whole phone, and the person they choose hears that a line was crossed and what kind. Never the site, never a screenshot.
Run a small pilot What a partner sees
This page is written to be printed or forwarded to your leadership team whole. For questions or a walkthrough for your ministry, write to sworn-support@snowleopard.dev.
Why it fits ministry
Built for the way real groups work.
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01
Each person chooses their own partner
A sponsor, a group brother, a spouse, a pastor: accountability in Sworn is one person choosing another, not an organization monitoring a roster. There's no leader dashboard and no group admin, on purpose. The relationship carries the weight, the way it already does in your groups.
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02
Confession stays voluntary
Because a partner only ever learns the count and the category, the details of a stumble stay the person's own to bring, in their own words, to their group, their pastor, their spouse. And when he wants to get specific, his own app holds the last seven days of blocked attempts. He can open it with his wingman, on his terms. The email starts the conversation; it doesn't replace it.
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03
Honest about what an app can do
No consumer app can truly lock itself onto a phone someone owns — claims otherwise are overclaiming. Sworn's answer is honesty. If the filter is turned off, removed, or goes quiet for a day, the partner hears about the silence. It's a tool rather than the work itself. A fence around the field your ministry is tending.
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04
More than pornography
Categories are chosen one by one. Pornography, gambling (rising fast with legalized sports betting), social media, shopping, gaming, VPNs and proxies, plus a personal list. One member's battle isn't another's; one tool covers both.
The partner's side
Exactly three kinds of email. Nothing else.
A slip: “3 blocked attempts in the last 24 hours. The sites were in the Pornography category.” A count and a category — never a URL, never a screenshot, never a history. At most about two of these a day, however rough the day was.
A loosened boundary. If a blocked category is removed, or the filter is paused from the app, partners are told plainly. Adding protection is silent. That's the direction of discipline.
Silence. An abrupt stop gets a soft “Sworn may not be active” nudge; a full quiet day gets a firmer note with a seven-day activity chart. An ordinary quiet evening doesn't trigger anything, because activity is compared against the person's own baseline.
And consent is real. Nobody becomes a partner without clicking a confirmation link first, and every email carries one-click unsubscribe. You can promise your people that saying yes to accountability won't sign their wife or their sponsor up for spam.
Trying it
A pilot that costs an hour, not a budget line.
There's nothing to license and no contract to sign — each person subscribes individually ($7/month after a 7-day free trial; malware and ad/tracker blocking are free forever). So a pilot is small and honest:
Week one — leaders first. Two or three leaders install it on their own phones and invite each other as partners. You'll see every email your members would see, from both sides, before you've recommended anything.
Week two — decide and offer. If it held up, mention it in group the way you'd mention a book that helped. Say what it does, what it costs, what a partner actually receives. Each member who opts in picks their own partner from inside the group or outside it.
Then let it be boring. Sworn works when it disappears into the week. The filter quietly holds, the rare email starts a real conversation, and the group keeps doing what the group does.
Setting it up takes about three minutes per phone. The app walks through one Settings screen (on iOS you choose the DNS configuration; on Android it's the Private DNS setting). iPhone and Android, plus Windows, Mac, Linux and Chromebook computers on the same account. One honest caveat for your tech-savvy members. Browsers with their own encrypted DNS (Brave, Firefox) need one setting switched off, and Support shows where.
Start with your own phone.
The best evaluation is the one your members would live with. Install it, invite a fellow leader, and watch what actually arrives.
On a computer too? Set up the phone first, then add Windows, Mac, Linux or Chromebook to the same account.
Questions, a walkthrough for your leadership team, or printed hand-outs: sworn-support@snowleopard.dev