Writing
Writing on church, care and AI
Most of what I publish lives on the FlockConnect blog. This page gathers the best of it by theme and links to each original.
7 of these are in my own words, and they are marked that way. The other 20 are FlockConnect posts that I direct and edit: they are drafted with AI from my research, seminary work and recorded conversations, then fact-checked and edited by me, and they carry FlockConnect’s byline. I explain why in AI Helps Produce. It Does Not Create. Short pieces that live only here are in Notes.
Why am I building FlockConnect?
I am building FlockConnect because a close friend at my church felt completely alone, and nobody knew until he had decided to leave. These pieces tell that story, explain why I started the software over from scratch, and set down the promises I have made about who will own it.
- Why I built FlockConnect: an interview on isolation and AI
My conversation with Joshua Updegraff on the Lead & Deliver Podcast about coming to faith, starting FlockConnect over from scratch, and AI in the church.
- Before it was software, it was a prayer
Written the day FlockConnect Starter opened to every church: the friend who was quietly leaving, and the prayer that came before any code.
- FlockConnect Is Not for Sale: A Founder's Pledge
A signed pledge, to be restated every year, that FlockConnect will not be sold, takes no outside investors, and lets every church take its data with it.
- What's new in FlockConnect, and what Collie does
What changed in FlockConnect in November 2026, and what its assistant, Collie, can and cannot do.
- What FlockConnect adds to Planning Center People
What FlockConnect adds for a church that already runs Planning Center People, and what it leaves to Planning Center.
Where does AI belong in a church?
AI belongs at the pastor’s side, doing the drafting and the noticing, and never in the pastor’s place. I build with AI every day, so these essays are about its limits as much as its uses: what I refuse to build, how I use it to write, and what it cannot give.
- AI Helps Produce. It Does Not Create.
Why FlockConnect blog posts no longer carry my name as author, how I use AI to write, and why intelligence is no measure of human dignity.
- Pastors Asked for This Feature. I Will Not Build It.
Pastors asked for Collie to text two members an introduction to each other, and this is why I said no, with the full list of what Collie will never do.
- I Talk to AI All Day. It Has Never Once Fed My Soul.
A confession from someone who builds with AI every day: it has never fed my soul, and the reasons have to do with pushback and being known.
- Four Questions to Ask a Church AI Vendor Before You Sign
Four questions that show whether a church AI tool helps people do ministry or tries to do the pastor’s work.
- AI Should Be a Sheepdog, Not a Shepherd
The case for AI in ministry as a sheepdog at the pastor’s side, and the limits FlockConnect builds into Collie.
- How Churches Should Think About Using AI
A framework for church leaders that starts with what never to hand to AI and keeps pastors doing the pastoring.
- The AI question churches are getting wrong
Two opposite mistakes churches make with AI: refusing useful tools, and asking software to do relational work only people can do.
- When the robot writes the reminder: AI and the image of God
A theology of AI in ministry: software can draft a reminder, and presence still belongs to a person who bears God’s image.
Why does community matter so much to a church?
The New Testament word for church means a gathered people, and the research on who stays in a church keeps pointing at friendships. These pieces look at what a church connection is, what the studies did and did not measure, and how a church helps a newcomer belong.
- Ecclesia: Without Community, There Is No Church
The word church rests on ecclesia, a gathered people, and that one word has shaped almost every decision I have made in building FlockConnect.
- The new member's first 90 days: an assimilation playbook
A practical playbook for helping a new member belong in their first 90 days at a church.
- One program, one ask: simpler church assimilation
The case for offering guests one clear next step in place of a menu of programs, and how to simplify.
- What is a church connection?
What a church connection is, why relationships matter for who stays, and how a church can notice the people it is missing.
- The friendship threshold for church retention
A careful look at Win and Charles Arn’s small 1984 study of new church members and the friendships they made in their first six months.
- Why church members really leave (not the sermon)
What church-growth research ties to who stays in a church, and what it never tested, sermon quality included.
- The early church model of authentic community
How Acts 2:42-47 describes a community where discipleship grows, and why programs cannot stand in for it.
How can a church share the work of pastoral care?
A church shares pastoral care by giving it to a team, because one pastor can know only so many people at depth. These pieces cover the math of pastoral capacity, the research on burnout and why pastors leave, and practical systems for follow-up and care reports.
- A Church Follow-Up System That Actually Closes the Loop
A six-step follow-up system that gives every need an owner, a due date and an outcome.
- 8 Free Church Care Report Templates (No Email Required)
Eight free care report templates and a printable visitation log, with no email address required to download them.
- Shared care: how team-based pastoral care prevents burnout
How spreading pastoral care across a team protects both the pastor and the people in their care.
- Pastor burnout in 2026: what the research says
What the 2026 research says about pastor burnout and falling satisfaction, and what helps.
- Why pastors really leave: conflict, calling, and burnout
What Lifeway Research’s surveys of current and former pastors show about why pastors leave the ministry.
- State of the American church in 2026
A plain reading of the newest research on American church attendance in 2026, and what it means for pastors.
- The pastor math: Dunbar's number and church care
What Dunbar’s research on relationships suggests about how many people one pastor can care for at depth, and why care has to be shared.