St. Mark's Methodist Church in Florissant, Missouri, has a history of social involvement in the community. Tutoring in a neighborhood school has been supplemented by an outreach educational program in a low rent apartment building. Volunteers work with kids on homework and projects after school.

An all day sales event is kind of a once a month thrift shop. Folks donate items, while other folks come from miles around to buy. The proceeds stock a food pantry for those down on their luck. Some activities express the love of Christ through one-time acts of kindness. A small group set up a one day free coffee and cookies event at a time when long, long lines were anticipated at a local motorist licensing office.

Two generations ago, the church declined to take a stand on open housing. It was a bit of a victory for segregationists, but folks on both sides of of the should-not-have-been controversy left the church. The price is paid to this very day, as black membership is only recently noticeable. But two years ago we were one of only a very few churches who were willing to invite a mostly minority start up congregation to hold afternoon services. It is not charity. They pay their own way, but joint services are common, and cross participation is not at all unusual.

It seems an obvious move, but it wasn't until recently that we took several major steps actively to attract people outside the congregation. In one move, a few of us were sponsored by the church as a Christian band. Contemporary worship began a year ago, with separate 10:30 service. Contemporary service is enthusiastic and growing, as we continue to develop new ideas to praise God and develop in fellowship.

We were impressed early on by a visit to the Church of the Resurrection in the Kansas City area. They had specifically targeted non-Christian skeptics, hosting discussion/debates, even promoting books by atheists. A few may have come to jeer but stayed to worship. Some were just curious at first.

I'm comfortable with skeptics. They represent a visit to what had been my long term ideological, spiritual home. I respond to questions, and occasional challenges, with cheerful respect. I don't really rebut the issues expressed, I suppose, as much as I simply testify about my own experiences when those experiences apply to the discussion.

I confess to being more puzzled than surprised by the reaction of Christians to those with a non-theistic outlook. A meeting between a few members of the Obama administration and a couple of groups of non-believers has raised the blood pressure of some Christians. "It is not likely that this outreach to anti-religious activists--many of whom would crush Christianity if they could--will do anything to calm the fears of people of faith" says one Christian activist. "Indeed, it will only alienate them even further."

I dunno. Attacking non-Christians like that seems ... well ... unChristian.

People of faith, especially Christians, have good reason to wonder exactly where their interests lie with the Obama administration. Now we have the definitive answer.

 - - Bill Donohue, President Catholic League, February 26, 2010

Nuggets of internet gold:

• The World of Doorman-Priest waxes on temptations that never stop.

• David Everitt-Carlson of The Wild Wild East Dailies in Munich needs encouragement, and gets a lot of it. Beware automatic music on your PC speakers.

• Emily at The Vigil finds a strong Democrat who actually stands up to Republicans, speaks plainly, and tells the truth.

• Manifesto Joe of Texas Blues reflects on filibusters and one tired, cranky, former Presidential candidate.

• Conservative Chuck Thinks Right doesn't much mind when women athletes of Canada celebrate occasional victories.

• Sadly, Ned Williams at WisdomIsVindicated joins those miseducated souls who believe Senatorial filibusters were invented by Constitutional founders. Note to Ned: unlimited debate in the Senate came later, and was, until 2009, never used to block everything, everything.

• Gwendolyn Barry with New Global Myth becomes strangely rhapsodic about what you might otherwise have thought to be traditional public figures. Beware automatic music on your PC speakers.

• Jack Jodell, friend of the working blogger, at THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON POST manages odd sympathy for an ailing former Vice President and accurately anticipates GOP Senators at this week's health summit.

• MyCue at RANDOM THOUGHTS picks out the real winner of the health summit, hidden in plain sight.

• Nancy Hanks at The Hankster takes a short break from independent voters to show us what winter has been in NYC.

• Max's Dad brings to us wrenching personal testimony from Olbermann about his father.

• James Wigderson hates the notion of Presidents elected by voters.

• Slant Right's John Houk hates it even more than that when anti-Muslim hate speech is called ...well... anti-Muslim hate speech.

Have a safe weekend. Pray for those in financial trouble, and those who are ill and cannot afford treatment. Be careful out there.

Imagine you are a Senator who is really REALLY opposed to some measure that may become law. If you are a liberal Democrat, it may be a bill to suspend human rights for Chinese anti-Communist freedom fighters (which conservatives backed, by the way). If you are a conservative you may be opposed to continued funding for Social Security.

You don't have the votes to defeat the measure you oppose, so what do you do? Well, you might try to keep the bill from coming to a vote to begin with. Democrats did that on a few judicial nominations a few years back for judges who seemed to have little regard for basic rights. Conservatives did that through the 1950s and 1960s on bills that would have kept white mobs from lynching or burning to death black people for such outrages as trying to vote.

So you talk the bill to death. Eventually other Senators give up and the Senate moves on. Or they come up with 60 votes (it used to be 67) and force the bill to a vote. If they manage the 60 votes, you stick to your guns and vote against whatever measure is so over the line you were willing to tie up the Senate forever. In the past, senators who opposed a bill and intend to vote against it, still voted to force a vote. They thought the Senate should have the chance to vote on it, even if they personally opposed it.

If you are for a bill, you will vote for it. If someone tries to tie up the Senate, keeping from a vote, you vote to end debate and force it to a vote.

OR if you oppose it, you will vote no. If someone tries to tie up the Senate, keeping from a vote, but you don't consider an important principle at stake, you will vote to end debate and force it to a vote, then you will vote against it.

BUT, if you consider a bill so outrageous that you just cannot tolerate it, you will vote against allowing it to come to a vote at all. Then if it does, because supporters got 60 Senators to force it, you will vote against it.

That's it, right? Well no. This week, a jobs bill was filled with measures Republicans have insisted on for years: tax cuts, exemptions for businesses who hire people, breaks for the wealthy in exchange for bringing back out of work folks. It was composed of GOP solutions, but Republicans still thought it was so outrageous, they tried to tie up the Senate. It barely got to a vote. But then it passed with more votes than when it all started.

6 Republicans thought the bill, intended to help families by creating jobs, was excellent enough to vote for. But the same 6 also thought the bill was so horrible they had to oppose allowing it to come to a vote at all. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Thad Cochran (R-MS), James Inhofe (R-OK), George LeMieux (R-FL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS) all voted to keep themselves from voting for the jobs bill. Apparently, putting food on family tables was the most excellent, horrible, great, and terrible idea ever. "I'm about vote for jobs," we hear each cry out. "Someone please stop me."

...if this pattern continues, you're going to see an inability on the part of America to deal with big problems in a very competitive world, and other countries are going to start running circles around us. We're going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate. We're not there right now.

 - - President Barack Obama, December 23, 2009
     On the new Republican practice of blocking every vote, even votes on
     routine legislation

Republicans are getting hit for what some of us may call hypocrisy. The conservative Washington Times sued and got a treasure trove of secret letters. One GOP official after another has denounced the Obama approach of creating jobs: making up as much of the employment deficit as possible, helping families stay afloat. The same critics secretly lobbied after the jobs.

Here in Missouri, Senator Kit Bond fought hard against economic recovery efforts. A year ago he told us why. "Unfortunately, this bill stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth of government, but it doesn’t stimulate jobs." He slammed the jobs creation bill, angrily insisting it would not only create no jobs but would cost jobs. At the same time, he wrote secret letters demanding that some of the jobs he denied would be created be directed to projects in Missouri, where the funds would, in his behind-the-scenes words, "create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities." Now that the secret letters are out, he has switched gears and backs a mild new Jobs bill.

Remember Joe Wilson, the "You Lie" fellow who interrupted President Obama's presentation to Congress? He insists that jobs created by the Recovery Bill are fake, created only on paper. While opposing the recovery in public, he told a different story in secret. He demanded that jobs be created in his area. "We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of the Congressional District."

Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT) publicly opposed Jobs Recovery while demanding jobs for Utah. Representative Pat Tiberi (R-OH) Joined in the public denunciations and the secret demands. Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE), Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Representative John Linder (R-GA), the list continues on and on.

You could argue that, since the bill was bound to pass, it was okay to argue against it, then play by the new rules for your state or district. The problem with that logic is the public insistence shared by all of the Republicans that the money being assigned to create jobs would actually destroy jobs. Why would anyone insist that large chunks of that job destroying program be aimed at their constituents?

In fact, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, and economists pretty much across the board agree that the Jobs bill last year created millions of jobs. Estimates of the exact number vary depending on whether you factor in the well known multiplier effect. Jobs created directly tend to create many more jobs because people who might otherwise be broke can purchase products that would have been unproduced.

Republicans who demand that government "tighten it's belt" the way families and businesses have to, seem to know better in their secret diaries. Government is not a family. It's there to help families. And government should not be out to make a profit when actual families need help in finding work.

The proposed project would create 38 new jobs and bring broadband to eight hospitals, five colleges, 16 libraries and 161 K-12 schools.

 - - Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE), February, 2009
     Secret letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, discovered by the
     conservative Washington Times in a recent lawsuit

I wish I had been wrong back in February when I said that the transportation sector jobs estimated to be created by major infrastructure projects would never materialize

 - - Senator Mike Johanns (R-NE), July 9, 2009
     Press release attacking the President for the same jobs program

Estimates vary on how many million people are employed as a result of the funds Senator Johanns demanded in private while attacking in public