The National Survey of Religious Leaders: Background, Methods, and Lessons Learned in the Research Process

Abstract

The National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL) is a new survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,600 clergy from across the religious spectrum. Conducted in 2019–2020, the NSRL contains a wealth of information about congregations’ religious leaders and provides a rich new resource for answering a wide range of questions about clergy who serve congregations. We describe NSRL methods so that analysts will be equipped to use this complex dataset. Aiming to deepen understanding of the research process, we also describe several challenges we encountered while pursuing this project, our responses to those challenges, and what we learned from confronting them.