**Note from the Christians Engaged leadership: We have had many questions about the Census from millennials – wondering if they need to respond to the letter in their mailbox or they are seeing ads for the census on social media trying to get their attention. For this reason, we wanted to provide some perspective for everyone on the importance of the census. Thank you to Kim for helping us put this into words.

By Kim Hesley, Guest Contributor

We know the story in Mark 2:1“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world” and in verse 3 it says, “And everyone went to his own town to register”.

Our Constitution requires a census every ten years found in Article I, Section 2 which states “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.”

Every person in the United States and the five territories is required to respond.   

By now, you should have received by mail an invitation to respond to the census with a unique ID number. 

There are 3 ways to respond; 1) online, 2) by phone or 3) by mail. 

Even if you have not received anything in the mail, you may respond without a unique ID number and we highly recommend that you do it. 

To do so online, go to my2020census.gov and follow the prompts.  It takes only about 10 minutes.  My husband and I just completed it and it was really easy.

You may also respond by phone at 844-330-2020. 

Note: there are separate numbers for 14 other languages on the website at 2020census.gov. 

The third way to respond is by mail if you receive a questionnaire by mail. 

April 1st is the designated Census Day which means the answers to the questions should reflect your status on April 1st.

Between May and July, census takers will follow up with houses that have not yet responded in one of the three methods listed above. 

In December, the Census Bureau is required by law to deliver apportionment counts to the President and Congress.

The census determines the number of Congressional representatives from each state and how those lines are drawn.  This is the first step toward redistricting. This is why every ten years some states lose seats in Congress and other states gain seats.  These seats also correlate to the number of Presidential Electors from each state.  The census can have a big impact on Presidential elections which is another reason it is so important that you take it.

State Legislative districts, State Board of Education districts, County Commissioner precincts, City Council districts, many other local taxing entities, and even our voting precincts are redrawn every ten years based on the census.

There are several other things impacted by the census: Lawmakers, business owners, community leaders, and many others use the data to make decisions about new schools, infrastructure, real estate development to just name a few.  Federal funding for public transit systems, education, rural areas, firefighters, housing for senior adults, disaster relief and rebuilding and much more is determined by census data.

Participating in the census is good citizenship and we highly recommend that Christians who are engaged honor their government and the Constitution by participating in the census.

Do it today! Remember–it will only take you about as long as it took to read this article.