My sabbatical will be an extended period of prayer, thought, rest, counsel, reading and writing which would be a seeking of God's will for the next season for Golden Harvest Food Bank and which would produce a seminary course on "Ministry with the Poor - Why Loving the Poor Lies at the Heart of the Mission of the Church."

Collaboration with ministers and priests during 32 years of ministry with the poor has shown me that the church's leaders are neither evangelized nor theologized concerning the role of the poor in God's plan of salvation and sanctification. I believe that "preaching good news to the poor" is constitutive of what it means to be the Church and lies at the core of the Church's mission of reconciling this world to the Father in Jesus, and that the Church ignores or marginalizes the poor to its peril.

My Sabbatical will have five components. First, a silent ten day directed retreat; second, theological research in Washington, D.C.; third, interviews in Chicago, Mississippi, and France; fourth, writing two seminary courses (one semester long, one a three day workshop format); and fifth, testing and polishing the courses in seminary settings.