HELENA — The lyrics, "Someone's crying, Lord," from the song, "Kum Ba Yah" echoed through the Capitol rotunda Friday as leaders of Montana's churches assembled to ask lawmakers to protect the state's poor, vulnerable and voiceless.

Simultaneously, House members were on the next floor, hashing through House Bill 2 — the state's budget — which decides just how the state will fund programs that will directly affect Montana's poverty-stricken.

"We come from a tradition that believes that God has given us all riches beyond measure, and we believe that the state can find the money to do those services that need to be done by government to take care of the most vulnerable," said Betty Whiting, who represents the Montana Association of Churches.

House Majority Leader Roy Brown, R-Billings, Reps. Carol Juneau, D-Browning, and Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, and Sen. John Bohlinger, R-Billings, spoke to the group about the budget and the cuts that are pending — mostly in the Department of Public Health and Human Services.

Brown asked the audience members to keep the 150 legislators in their prayers as they make their way through the "tough decisions" that will come in the next few weeks.

Kaufmann encouraged people of faith to let their voices — and their values — be heard.

"I think one of the places where the values discussion is sometimes missing is the appropriations process," Kaufmann said. "To me that is the ultimate statement of our values and where this discussion ought to be most clear. Unfortunately, it often becomes a discussion about columns of numbers and whether they balance."

Retired Rev. Bob Holmes of Helena asked the crowd to remember that each decision made in government should and does have a faith dimension.

In light of budget cuts to services that deeply affect the poor in Montana, Holmes said God's teachings are sometimes being ignored.

"Throughout all the segments of Scripture, God always and consistently, takes the side of the poor against the rich, the oppressed against the oppressor," Holmes said. "You set that up against some of the things being done by the Legislature, and you'll see how far the difference is between God's way and that way."