The National Churches Trust is conducting a new online survey to measure the contribution churches make to society. 

The survey is set to study the social and economic benefits churches provide to local communities and to the UK more generally.

Churches, chapels and meeting houses across the country are being invited to take part.

Head of Communications, Eddie Tulasiewicz told Premier he hopes the study will highlight the vital role churches play.

"Churches do so much to help local people through all sorts of things. Food Banks, drop-in centres, schools, nurseries, etc," he said.

"We don't think there is enough information about just how much churches are doing to help local communities in the UK. So our survey really is designed to help us tell that story more widely." 

The study will document the number of people who attend local churches and assess the range of additional activities and outreach programmes each church provides.

"This could be anything from running a soup kitchen to having a choir, to doing alcohol counselling," Tulasiewicz added.

"Churches are places of worship, but all the effort that people make, to make the world a better place, sometimes that goes unrecognised in today's secular world."

The results will build on a similar study, undertaken in 2010, which looked at the physical condition of places of worship and their management.

The new research will be used to highlight to local and national government the scale of contributions churches make to the public through volunteer programmes and social action projects.