For more than fifty years, those wanting to keep an eye on trends have turned to the Gallup Poll. It has long supplied reliable data on social, political, and economic changes-and religious ones as well.

The man responsible for taking this religious pulse, who saw spiritual attitudes as a societal vital sign long before religion was front-page news, is George H. Gallup, Jr., president of the Gallup Poll and executive director of the Princeton Religion Research Center, both based in Princeton, New Jersey. Gallup's father pioneered the science of survey research, scoring a coup with his prediction of Roosevelt's victory over Alf Landon in 1936, and son joined father in 1954.

But George Gallup is more than a household name; he is a committed Christian seeking to keep church leaders informed about significant factors of public belief and practice, pressing to find data churches can use to make positive changes.

LEADERSHIP editors Jim Berkley and Kevin Miller journeyed to Princeton to question ...