Frequently Asked Questions

Flock is a mobile-first app for church community group management. It combines a real-time prayer wall, AI-powered photo attendance, at-risk member detection, group chat with Bible verse integration, and pastoral intelligence — all in one app designed specifically for group leaders.

No. Flock is not a ChMS. We don't do giving, check-in kiosks, or worship planning. Flock is purpose-built for what happens between Sundays — small groups, prayer, attendance, and member care. Many churches use Flock alongside their existing ChMS (like Planning Center or Breeze).

Flock is designed for three personas: group leaders who want to spend less time on admin and more time shepherding, pastors who need visibility across dozens of groups, and members who want a simple way to stay connected to their community.

Four things: (1) Prayer-first design with a dedicated prayer wall, intercessory prayer wall, and AI-powered sentiment awareness. (2) AI photo attendance that takes 60 seconds instead of passing a clipboard. (3) Pastoral intelligence that surfaces who needs care before you have to ask. (4) Free church-wide announcements with push notifications — no SMS fees, no per-message costs. No other app combines all four.

Sign up for a free account at admin.flock.church. Create your organization, add a group, and invite your members. The entire setup takes less than 5 minutes. No credit card required.

Yes! Flock's free plan includes ALL features — prayer wall, AI attendance, chat, events, at-risk detection, everything. The free tier supports 1 group with up to 10 members. No credit card required, no time limit.

You can invite members by email, share a join code, or send a direct link. Members receive an email invitation and can join with Google sign-in or email/password — whatever's easiest for them.

Members can use Flock on iOS via the native app. A web version (PWA) is also available at app.flock.church. Android is coming soon.

The free plan includes 1 group and up to 10 members with access to core features like prayer, chat, events, and attendance. Paid plans unlock higher limits and additional capabilities as your church grows.

Free: 1 group, 10 members. Starter ($49/mo): 5 groups, 100 members. Pro ($199/mo): 15 groups, 250 members. Enterprise: unlimited groups and members with custom pricing.

The free plan is permanent — it's not a trial. Use it as long as you want. When you're ready to add more groups or members, upgrade to a paid plan.

Yes, you can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Changes take effect immediately. If you downgrade, you'll keep access until the end of your current billing period.

Take a group photo at your meeting. Flock uses AWS Rekognition to identify the faces in the photo and match them to your group roster. Members are marked present automatically. New faces are flagged as visitors for follow-up. The whole process takes about 60 seconds.

Flock supports three privacy levels: Public (visible to all group members), Private (visible only to group leaders and pastoral staff), and Elevated (group leaders can escalate critical prayers to the organization-wide intercessory prayer wall for pastoral coordination).

The intercessory prayer wall is an organization-wide view available to pastoral staff. It shows elevated prayers from across all groups, AI-discovered prayer clusters (when multiple groups are praying about the same person or situation), and allows staff to add follow-up notes and track resolution.

Flock monitors attendance patterns and prayer engagement signals. A member is flagged at-risk when they miss 3+ consecutive meetings or their attendance drops below 50% in the last 4 weeks. Flock also considers prayer sentiment trends and RSVP patterns for a more complete picture.

Absolutely. Flock's chat includes everything GroupMe has (messaging, reactions, images, GIFs) plus features designed for church groups: inline Bible verse insertion, AI-powered semantic search, chat groups (sub-conversations), pinned messages, and read receipts.

Admins and pastoral staff can broadcast announcements at four scope levels: organization-wide (entire church), campus, ministry, or group. Each announcement supports rich text, image and file attachments (PDFs, PowerPoint, etc.), and push notifications. Members receive instant push notifications on their phones. A delivery tracker shows how many people received each announcement. Leadership hierarchy is enforced — org admins announce church-wide, campus pastors to their campus, ministry directors to their ministry, and group leaders to their group.

No. Church-wide announcements with push notifications are included in every Flock plan — including the free tier. Unlike SMS services that can cost $0.04-0.08 per message ($100+ per blast at larger churches), Flock uses push notifications which have zero per-message costs. You can send unlimited announcements to your entire congregation at no additional charge.

Yes. Announcements can be scoped to your entire organization, a specific campus, a ministry, or individual groups. Members only see announcements relevant to their groups and roles. The leadership hierarchy is enforced at every level — org admins can announce church-wide, campus pastors to their campus, ministry directors to their ministry, and group leaders to their own group.

Flock uses PostgreSQL Row-Level Security (RLS) for complete multi-tenant isolation — your church's data is physically separated from every other church at the database level. All data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Authentication uses Firebase Auth with industry-standard JWT tokens.

No. Flock uses Row-Level Security (RLS) enforced at the database level. This means even if there were a bug in the application code, the database itself would prevent cross-organization data access. This is the same isolation pattern used by enterprise SaaS platforms.

Yes. Members can request complete account deletion, which removes all their personal data, prayer requests, and membership records. This follows GDPR-style data rights principles.

Flock is available as a native iOS app and as a Progressive Web App (PWA) at app.flock.church. Android support is coming soon. The admin panel is available at admin.flock.church on any modern web browser.

Yes. Flock is designed offline-first. You can view cached prayers, messages, and group data without an internet connection. Changes sync automatically when you reconnect.

Flock is designed to complement your existing church software, not replace it. Use Planning Center for Sundays and Flock for everything between Sundays. Direct integrations are on our roadmap.

With AI photo attendance, about 60 seconds. Take a group photo, review the AI-identified attendees, confirm, and you're done. You can also use traditional roster-based check-in if you prefer.

Yes. Flock automatically flags members who miss 3+ consecutive meetings or whose attendance drops below 50%. You'll see at-risk alerts on your dashboard with suggested care actions — like reaching out, scheduling a coffee, or assigning a follow-up to another leader.

When a prayer is submitted, you can flag it for follow-up. Flock tracks the follow-up status (new, in progress, complete) so nothing falls through the cracks. You can also add notes visible only to leaders.

Yes. The admin dashboard shows health scores for every group in your organization with drill-down from org → campus → ministry → group → member. Filter by date range, campus, or ministry.

The pastoral intelligence dashboard gives senior staff a bird's-eye view of your church's prayer life and engagement. It includes prayer sentiment trends, word clouds showing what your church is praying about, AI-discovered prayer clusters, at-risk member rollups, and group health scores — all with appropriate role-based access controls.

You can manually add or remove attendees after the AI scan. The AI learns faces over time, so recognition improves after 2-3 photos. For best results, ensure good lighting and that faces are clearly visible in the photo.

Members can sign in with Google or email/password. If they're having trouble, they can use the "Forgot Password" link on the login screen. If the issue persists, an admin can resend the invitation email from the admin panel.