Create your account and church: your first two minutes

What does signing up ask for?

Signup is a single form with three fields: your name, your church's name, and your email. There are three ways to sign in, shown as tabs: a magic link sent to your email, a password, or your Google account. Whichever you pick, no card is collected at signup, and account holders need to be 18 or older.

If you choose a password, use a passphrase of at least 12 characters. There are no special-character rules to satisfy, so a long phrase you can remember beats a short cryptic one. The magic-link and password tabs include a short bot check, and the button stays disabled until it passes.

• Signup asks for your name, your church's name, and your email. No card is collected at signup.
• Three sign-in methods: magic link, password (12 characters or more, passphrases welcome), or Google. A short bot check guards the magic-link and password tabs.
• Open the confirmation email on the same device you signed up on; the link finishes sign-in in that browser.
• One step creates your account, your church with its own web address, your person record, and your account-owner role. One signup creates one church.
• The context step is optional and fully skippable: denomination, theological alignment, pastoral language (English or Español (México)), and an off-by-default scripture toggle for Collie, which stays advisory either way.
• Five setup paths: Planning Center, CSV upload, manual setup, a demo church, or decide later. All five are owner-only.
• Owners and admins set up MFA after entering the app. Staff join by email invitation, and members never need accounts.

Why open the confirmation email on the same device?

Magic-link and password signups both end the same way: FlockConnect sends a confirmation email and asks you to open it on the device you signed up on. Clicking the link finishes the secure sign-in in that same browser and creates your church in one motion.

Google signups skip the email step. The form notes that FlockConnect uses your Google email to sign you in and that your church name is saved temporarily on your device until Google sends you back to finish.

What does FlockConnect create for my church?

One step sets up everything: your user account, your church with its own unique web address, a person record for you in your new people list, and your role as account owner. Your church is also seeded with the default Connection Health rules, so the connection rings have sensible starting points from day one.

One signup creates one church. If you are already signed in, the signup page sends you into your app rather than starting another church. And if sign-in succeeds but church creation does not finish, a welcome screen offers to finish setting up your church or to start over, and points you to support@flockconnect.com if neither works.

What is the optional context step?

Right after your church is created, you land on a short context step. All four fields are optional and the whole step can be skipped. FlockConnect uses the answers to tailor Collie's tone and set your church's default language. Only the account owner sees this step.

The fields: a denomination picker with twelve named traditions plus Other and Prefer not to say, a free-text line about your theological alignment, a preferred pastoral language (English or Español (México)) used by default for Collie outputs and member-facing notifications, and a checkbox that allows Collie to reference scripture. That checkbox starts unchecked, so Collie quotes scripture only if you opt in. Either way Collie stays advisory: it drafts, and a person reviews and approves before anything goes out.

What are the setup paths?

After context comes a setup-path screen with five choices: connect Planning Center, upload a CSV, set up manually, explore a demo church, or decide later. Decide later is a real choice on the list, and the Planning Center sync and CSV import guides cover the first two paths in detail.

The setup paths are for the account owner. Admins and care partners who join later by invitation go straight to the app instead, because each path is an owner-level action.

When does MFA start, and who else signs up?

Account creation and onboarding run before any multi-factor authentication setup, so nothing interrupts your first few minutes. Once you enter the app, owners and admins are asked to set up MFA and to re-verify at least every 30 days. Care partners are asked only if your church turns that requirement on.

Your staff never use the signup page: you invite admins and care partners by email, and they accept by signing in with the address that received the invite. Members never create accounts at all; anything they need to respond to, like an assessment, reaches them as a secure link, with no password to manage.