A national snapshot of America’s congregations
The National Congregations Study surveys a representative sample of America’s churches, synagogues, mosques, and other local places of worship.
The NCS is based on in-depth interviews with congregational leaders in 1998, 2006-2007, 2012, and 2018-2019. It gathers information about worship, programs, staffing, community activities, demographics, and many other characteristics of American congregations.
Learn
About the project
With information collected over more than 20 years, the NCS helps us better understand many aspects of U.S. congregational life, and how congregations are changing in the 21st century.
Explore
The survey data
Work with the survey responses to find out the basic facts for each question and create your own customized tables that cross-tabulate responses to two different questions.
See
Our publications
Read our reports and other writings about interesting research results and findings.
Download the data
NCS cumulative data are available from the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA). The NCS cumulative data along with some restricted data also are available from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).
“NCS findings help us distinguish truth from myth about American congregations, and they help us assess the extent to which this or that feature of congregational life permeates the religious landscape.”