https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJbZLgL0zEY&spfreload=5

If you attended the NT-NL Table Talk in October 2016, our speaker referred to this study a number of times:

The National Congregations Study: Religious Congregations in 21st Century America

What is religion in the United States like today? How do we make sense of it all? The National Congregations Study (NCS) can help.

“Based on three nationally representative surveys of congregations from across the religious spectrum—the first in 1998, the second in 2006-07, and a third in 2012—NCS findings can inform those with deep interests in the state of American congregations as well as those with only a passing interest in religion. Because the same questions have been asked in multiple waves of the NCS, we can also track how congregations have changed over time. These data will keep sociologists and professional religious observers busy for years, and they will inform all manner of religious leaders, from small-town clergy and megachurch pastors to seminary presidents and denomination heads.

There are many other surveys that explore America’s religious landscape. But most other surveys ask people only about their own individual religious beliefs and practices. The NCS, by contrast, examines what people do together in congregations. What communities of faith do together tells us something important about the state of American religion, whatever the specific beliefs and practices of individuals in those communities.”