The Shepherd Forge License, Version 1.0

The Shepherd Forge (the Overview, the START HERE guide, and the companion documents, together called “the Forge”) is copyright © 2026 David H. Rhoades. It is offered free to the local church on these terms. All rights not granted here are reserved.

Who may use it free. In this license, a “local church” is a single congregation, or a multi-site church under one governing board, that is identifying, testing, training, and affirming its own elders. Denominations, conventions, associations, networks, seminaries, colleges, parachurch ministries, publishers, and businesses are not local churches under this license and receive no free grant. They may ask for permission under term 6.

1. Free to your church. Any local church may download, print, copy, and use the Forge to identify, test, train, and affirm its own elders, at no cost.

2. Adapt it freely. Change the wording, cut what does not fit your polity, and add what your bylaws require. You do not need to ask or to tell anyone.

3. Share it within your church. You may share your adapted version with your own elders, deacons, members, and candidates. You may place it in a password-protected or login-required area of your church’s website or internal system that is limited to your members and candidates. You may give a complete copy, with this license attached, to another local church for that church’s own elder training. Do not post the original or an adapted version on a public webpage, on social media, or through any other open channel.

4. Give it away; never sell it. Do not sell the Forge or any version of it, charge for access to it, or include it in anything that is sold. You may charge what it actually costs to print copies.

5. Keep the credit line. Every copy, original or adapted, carries this line: “Adapted from The Shepherd Forge by David H. Rhoades, theshepherdforge.com.”

6. Organizations ask first. A denomination, convention, association, network, seminary, college, parachurch ministry, publisher, or business needs written permission before it reproduces, adapts, translates, or distributes the Forge, or material substantially drawn from it, in any curriculum, training program, publication, or website. Linking to theshepherdforge.com and recommending the Forge never needs permission.

7. The name stays with the Forge. A local church may describe its process as “adapted from The Shepherd Forge” or “our Shepherd Forge process.” It may not present its adapted version simply as “The Shepherd Forge” without the adaptation credit. No organization may use the name, the tagline “Forged to Guard the Flock,” or the logo. No one may suggest that David H. Rhoades or Broadview Baptist Church endorses an adapted version.

8. No one else owns it. Adaptations remain subject to this license. No one gains ownership of, or exclusive rights in, the Forge or any adaptation of it. No one may register or claim copyright in a way that restricts the author or any other licensed user.

9. Breaking the terms ends the license. This license ends automatically for any church or organization that materially breaks its terms, for example by selling the Forge, dropping the credit line, or posting it publicly. When it ends, all further copying and distribution must stop.

10. As is. The Forge is offered as is, without warranty. Each church is responsible for how it applies the Forge and for its own decisions about its elders. The author is not liable for those decisions or for how any church applies the material.

11. Governing law. This license is governed by the laws of the State of Texas. This does not limit the author’s right to enforce it elsewhere.

Questions and permission requests: forge@davidrhoades.org.