Background COVID-19 and its associated restrictions around in-person gatherings have created unprecedented challenges for religious congregations and those who lead them. While several surveys have attempted to describe how pastors and congregations responded to COVID-19, these provide a relatively thin picture of how COVID-19 is impacting religious life. There is scant qualitative data describing the lived reality of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic. Purpose and methods This paper provides a more detailed look at how pastors and congregations experienced and responded to COVID-19 and its associated restrictions in the early period of the pandemic. To do so, we draw from 26 in-depth interviews with church-appointed United Methodist pastors conducted between June and August 2020. Pastors were asked to describe how their ministry changed as a result of COVID-19 and interviews were analyzed using applied thematic analysis approaches to identify the most common emergent themes. Results Pastors reported that COVID-19 fundamentally unsettled routine ways of doing ministry. This disruption generated both challenges and opportunities for clergy and their congregations. In the findings, we describe how clergy responded in key areas of ministry–worship and pastoral care–and analyze how the pandemic is (re)shaping the way that clergy understood their role as pastors and envisioned the future of the Church. We argue for the value of examining the pandemic as an “unsettled” cultural period (Swidler 1986) in which religious leaders found creative ways to (re)do ministry in the context of social distancing. Rather than starting from scratch, we found that pastors drew from and modified existing symbolic and practical tools to fit pandemic-related constraints on religious life. Notably, however, we found that “redoing” ministry was easier and more effective in some areas (worship) than others (pastoral care). Conclusions and Implications The impact of COVID-19 on pastors and congregations is complex and not fully captured by survey research. This study provides a baseline for investigating similarities and differences in the responses of pastors within and across denominations and traditions. It also provides a baseline for assessing whether changes in ministry implemented during the early stages of the pandemic remain in place in the post-COVID world.

The fourth wave of the National Congregations Study (NCS‐IV) was conducted in 2018–2019 with a nationally representative sample of congregations from across the religious spectrum. The NCS‐IV included a fresh cross‐section of congregations generated in conjunction with the 2018 General Social Survey and a panel of congregations that participated in the third NCS wave. Data were collected via a 65‐minute interview with one key informant from 1,262 congregations. The cooperation rate was 74 percent; the conservatively calculated response rate was 69 percent. Information was gathered about multiple aspects of congregations’ social composition, structure, activities, leadership, and programming. Approximately two‐thirds of the NCS‐IV questionnaire replicates items from previous NCS waves. This introduction to the NCS‐IV symposium describes NCS‐IV methodology and special features of the new data. The three symposium articles present NCS‐IV results about congregations’ political activities, racial and ethnic composition, and worship practices.

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.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically upended religious life and placed significant strain on religious congregations. However, the effects of the pandemic were likely not felt evenly across the religious landscape. Purpose We used data from the fourth wave of the National Congregations Study, gathered on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic in 2018–19, to identify the kinds of congregations that may have been especially vulnerable to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods Using bivariate and multiple regression analysis, we examined two aspects of congregations' preparedness for the pandemic: technological infrastructure and financial stability. Results We found that, while many congregations were technologically and financially equipped for a time of social distancing and economic recession, there were stark inequalities in levels of preparedness among congregations on the basis of race, class, size, urban/rural location, religious tradition, and the age of congregations' parishioners. In particular, Catholic congregations and congregations with older attendees tended to lack streaming or online communication capacities, and both rural and small congregations had more limited technological infrastructure and less financial cushion. Somewhat surprisingly, predominantly Black congregations were more likely to have worship streaming systems set up prior to the pandemic, though these congregations were more likely to lack other kinds of technological and financial infrastructure. Conclusions and Implications Though COVID-19's full impact on congregations will not be known for several years, these results highlight variations in congregations’ readiness for the pandemic's challenges, and they show that COVID-19's impact likely has not been felt equally across the religious landscape.