Research Services

A diverse collection of people in a group

Research Services

Research Services helps the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) make fact-based decisions, based on scientific research processes and reports. We have statistical data that is available to all Presbyterians and to the public. We’ve outlined here some of our most recent work.

What We Do

Research Services provides a wide variety of services, including articles and reports, demographics information, statistics, and program evaluations. Here are some additional services we can provide your congregation.

Research Services can provide services in:

program and process evaluation
congregational self-assessments and member surveys
meeting and conference evaluations
needs assessment
census data analysis
evaluations of church entities
focus groups
customer satisfaction surveys
resource evaluations
pre-testing of new resources
trend analysis

For information about research capabilities, email Susan Barnett (Director, Research Services).

Data from Church Trends is available for use by presbyteries, synods, and congregations.

In addition, we are willing to make these data available to researchers interested in conducting secondary analyses.

For information about available data or to order specific files, please contact Research Services.

Data from the Presbyterian Panel and denominational data are also available from the American Religion Data Archive.

We also have a wealth of resources available to congregations who want to know about their congregations and/or about their local communities. Our Help for Congregations page describes these resources.

Part of our mission is to seek feedback from the denomination. Help us in that effort by letting us know what’s on your mind:

If you have a specific research question, we’ll try to find an answer. (For more general questions, contact PresbyTel — the reference desk for the PC(USA) — providing answers to questions from members, elders, ministers, and others about the denomination’s resources and materials, programs, policies, and conferences and other events. PresbyTel can be reached at 800-872-3283 or send email to PresbyTel@pcusa.org.
If you have questions or feedback about our work, please let us know. Send such comments to Research Services.