Why I built FlockConnect

It started with a friend who was leaving

During COVID, one of my closest friends told me he felt completely isolated. We were in a small group together. We did life together. He had been a member of our church for nearly two years, and he really only knew about three people. He told me he had decided to leave.

I was heartbroken. When I brought it to my pastors, they were heartbroken too. They had no idea. He looked fine on paper. He was showing up. He was in a small group. But nobody knew he felt alone.

The research named what I had felt

That stayed with me, so I started reading. A friend pointed me to church-growth research that put words to it. New members who form real friendships in their first months tend to put down roots and stay. New members who are processed through programs and events but never actually connected to anyone tend to drift, often without a word. The relationships were the signal.

This is the assimilation research Flavil Yeakley first measured, and that Win and Charles Arn carried to pastors. I had lived both sides of it. Connection is the thing God used to grow me, and isolation is the thing He saved me from.

The gap was hiding in the software

The more pastors I talked to, the more I heard the same thing. Their software could tell them who showed up on Sunday and who gave. It could not tell them who actually knew anyone.

A church management system is built to run the operations of a church, and the good ones do that well. But it watches the relationship between the institution and each member. It was never built to watch the relationships between the members themselves, which is exactly where someone quietly slips away.

So I built the missing layer

FlockConnect is a Church Relationship Manager. It does not replace the church management system a church already runs. It comes alongside that system and adds the layer it was never meant to hold: who is connected, and who is drifting toward the door. A church on Planning Center connects through the official two-way integration, and a church on anything else brings its people in by CSV.

Collie, the assistant inside FlockConnect, helps a pastor see who looks isolated and can draft a note or a next step. She never sends a message, writes to a record, or acts on her own. A person reviews and approves every action. She is not the shepherd. That is the pastor. She is the sheepdog who helps watch the whole flock.

What I believe

I believe people are made to know and to be known. I believe the church is where that is supposed to happen, and that when one person falls through the cracks the whole body loses something: their gifts, their service, the part only they were ever going to play. You do not just lose a number. You lose a person.

I do not believe the answer is more automation standing between a pastor and their people. I believe it is better sight, so that the next time a pastor sees someone, they already know who needs them. Deeper connections lead to deeper relationships. Deeper relationships lead to better discipleship. That is the whole reason FlockConnect exists.

A little about me

I am Michael Tribett, the founder of FlockConnect. I grew up in Las Vegas and now live in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I have served as a small-group leader at Exchange Church in Rolesville since 2018. I hold a Master of Divinity in Christian Ministry from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I came to faith in 2016 on a mission trip to Thailand, and I have spent the years since around both ministry and church technology, which is where I kept running into the same blind spot in every tool. FlockConnect went through the Missional Labs Faith and AI Accelerator, and it is an official Planning Center integration partner.

A church on Planning Center connects through the official two-way Planning Center integration. You can read more on the blog, or find me on LinkedIn.