Fourth Wave of the National Congregations Study

“…their social composition, staffing patterns, worship practices, community engagement, and many other things? How are American congregations changing? ”

Team Members/Contributors

Mark A. Chaves Duke University Contact Me

About this project grant for researchers

The 1998, 2006, and 2012 National Congregations Studies (NCS) collected data from a total of 3,815 congregations about a wide range of their characteristics and activities. A grant from the Lilly Endowment makes it possible to gather new data from another high quality national sample of approximately 1,050 congregations in 2018 by interviewing a key informant, usually a clergyperson, in each congregation. The primary goals of this project are to (i) gather and disseminate important and up-to-date basic information about American congregations, (ii) study if and how American religious congregations have changed over time, and (iii) gather and disseminate first-time information on topics that were not explored in previous NCS surveys. This project will replicate, to the extent possible, the sampling strategy, data collection methods, and many of the items used in the 1998, 2006, and 2012 surveys. This proposal requests $30,000 to support NCS-IV data collection.