Moody is usually seen only as a tireless, solidly built revivalist always pleading with sinners on the sawdust trail. While it is true he preached six sermons a day just a month before his death, it was in his role as a father that his personality is best revealed. In he married Emma Revell, who became the proverbial personality behind the scenes.
She mothered his three children—Emma, William, and Paul—while also serving as his personal secretary. Here he played the role of a gentleman farmer, daily riding horse and buggy at breakneck speed through the fields, taking an afternoon nap, or huddling over hundreds of letters that he personally signed and then spread around the room for the ink to dry. He took baths three times a day in ice-cold water.
Noting a shortage of china, he ordered barrels of the same pattern. He bought ascots and suspenders by the gross. His son recalls how once his dad couldn't decide which of several Oriental rugs to buy, so he impulsively bought them all.
Moody was a wonderful storyteller, spending time with both his children and his beloved grandchildren. Go and turn up something. Would Moody have become a wealthy tycoon had he channeled his dynamic energies into the business world?
If Moody lived in our sophisticated age, would multitudes throng to hear him preach in his rapid style of words per minute, or was he a man that appealed only to hearers of the Victorian era? With her bright mind and powerful speaking abilities, Catherine Booth emerged as one of the most influential women in modern religious history. William Booth was born in economic and spiritual poverty, yet he founded a worldwide organization dedicated to their eradication.
The agreement shifted Christianity from being an illicit, persecuted sect to being a welcome—and soon dominant—religion of the Roman Empire. Your donations support the continuation of this ministry. Moody As Educator Although continuing to conduct evangelistic crusades, in D. Moody as Father Moody is usually seen only as a tireless, solidly built revivalist always pleading with sinners on the sawdust trail. They settled in Northfield, where Moody was born and raised, and he began to plan his next round of evangelistic city campaigns.
From October to May , Moody and three other evangelists toured through the major cities of the Midwest and Atlantic coast, preaching the message of salvation. Moody would embark on yet another city campaign before the desire to train young Christian workers would grip him again.
Moody was on the cutting edge of ministry, and in , Moody opened the Northfield Seminary for Young Women to provide young women the opportunity to gain an education. Not long after, Moody created the Mount Hermon School for Boys with the same goal as the girls' school: to educate the poor and minorities. Moody had an amazing ability to bridge the gap between denominations, which was apparent in the diverse religious backgrounds of the school's students.
Moody had been focused on ministry near his home in Northfield but he came out to Chicago to help raise money for the Society, support Dryer, and see his dream become a reality.
The Chicago Evangelization Society had been Moody's vision but really came to fruition because of Dryer's hard work. See History of Moody Bible Institute. By it was estimated that 5, student volunteers from America alone had come out of the program. Moody's vision for the mission movement grew as it spread around the world to Europe and South Africa.
Moody continued to evangelize throughout America, often preaching in major cities and at various universities. His heart was for his schools, and he spent much of his time in Northfield. Moody was a visionary who always seemed a step ahead of the status quo. From training women, to reaching out to lost children, to bridging the gap between denominations, he was unlike any other.
Moody was a man of great discernment. He had an innate ability to find capable, godly people to put into positions of leadership and bring his ideas to fruition. This enabled him to continue his evangelistic outreach while his ministries flourished. Throughout his life, Moody always found time to be with his family, making every effort to show his love and care for them. Search Submit Search Close. Admissions Chevron. In he gave up business to work full time in social and evangelistic endeavors at the YMCA and his Sunday school.
Tireless, innovative, and unconventional, he recruited new students by offering them candy and free pony rides. Although a monotone singer, he enthusiastically led songs, taught the Bible lesson, and dismissed each student by name.
Meanwhile Moody relentlessly sought financial contributions from rich evangelical businessmen such as John Farwell and Cyrus McCormick. Moody also devised ministries to the adult community of Chicago.
Under his leadership the YMCA developed a citywide distribution of tracts and held daily noon prayer meetings. His mission held prayer meetings in the evening for adults, as well as Friday teas, and classes in English for recent immigrants.
In he expanded his mission into a church—the Illinois Street Independent Church—for immigrant families. The Great Chicago Fire in October caused Moody to leave church work for a career as a traveling revivalist. The famous fire destroyed his church, his home, and the local YMCA. At first he was spiritually depressed, but eventually he realized that too much of his energy had been spent in committee work and fund raising.
He determined now to focus on preaching the gospel of Christ, for he was convinced that the world would be changed not by social work, but by the return of Christ and the establishment of his millennial kingdom on earth. In the summer of he boldly set out on faith for England with his song leader, Ira Sankey, and their families.
After preaching for two years in England, Scotland, and Ireland, he returned to America as an internationally famous revivalist.
Immediately, representatives from numerous American cities lobbied him to hold a crusade in their cities. For the next three years, from till , Moody conducted revival campaigns in both large cities like Philadelphia and small towns like Newburyport, in structures ranging from converted skating rinks to abandoned railroad depots. During these crusades he pioneered many techniques of evangelism: a house-to-house canvass of residents prior to a crusade; an ecumenical approach enlisting cooperation from all local churches and evangelical lay leaders regardless of denominational affiliations; philanthropic support by the business community; the rental of a large, central building; the showcasing of a gospel soloist; and the use of an inquiry room.
Although continuing to conduct evangelistic crusades, in D. In that year he established Northfield Seminary for girls, followed two years later by Mount Hermon School for boys. He hoped that providing a Bible-centered education would produce an army of trained lay people for the work of evangelism in the growing cities of America.
In , Moody invited adults and college-age youths to the first of many summer Bible conferences at his home in Northfield. His ecumenical spirit and lack of theological training kept Moody from rigid doctrinal positions, such as those that characterized contemporaries in the holiness, perfectionism, or dispensationalist movements. There is no way to quantify the effect of this ministry.
Sufficient to say, tens of thousands became believers or recommitted their lives to Jesus Christ and found healing and freedom from various bondages. Because of his experiences with Edward Kimball and his field hospital ministry during the Civil War, Moody knew he must find ways for the crowds who heard him preach to get individual care.
Out of the necessity to help the seekers at his meetings in America and abroad, Mr. Moody sought the help of local churches wherever he preached. There they could ask questions about the message, the Bible, or issues involving their souls. In those unhurried environments, men, women, and children were not only encouraged to ask questions, they were invited to seek prayer for salvation, inner or physical healing, or sundry needs and burdens.
And finally, to be sure, folks were encouraged to attend local churches for baptism and membership. In the wake of such meetings, thousands not only heard the gospel and made a decision to turn to Christ; a maturation process bolstered by face-to-face counsel, encouragement to read Scripture and pray, as well as invitations to become connected to Bible-teaching, Christ-honoring churches where wholesome fellowship could be found became the order of the day.
Indeed, Moody and his fellow workers were frequently asked for advice about entering full-time service, and the requests to be mentored and trained for Christian ministry became so common that Moody knew he could not ignore them.
When those who sought guidance toward ministry were university educated and economically stable—like Henry Drummond and R. They were invited to travel with the team and be mentored for ministry along the way. They grew up in rural or urban poverty, and they had little or no education beyond the elementary levels of reading, writing, and arithmetic. In his home base, Chicago, Mr. Moody managed to recruit a college professor from Illinois State Normal University, Emma Dryer, to oversee a training school for women who felt called to home and foreign mission work.
The Chicago school proved to be a mere prelude to the planting of other educational institutions. Estey, of Estey Organ Company fame; and philanthropists such as Mrs. Cyrus P. Nettie McCormick.
Moody personally invested in these people—helping them to grow in their faith and unabashedly asking them to help underwrite training for economically deprived young people. Besides building a church and school in Chicago, Moody secured property in Northfield, Massachusetts.
With the help of his prosperous supporters, the increasingly famous evangelist bought land and erected buildings near his birthplace where Mother Moody lived until her death a few days before her ninety-first birthday in Because Dwight and Emma Moody and their three children lived humbly and frugally in Chicago or with Mother Moody in Massachusetts, there was never a hint of Moody personally profiting from these funds.
First came the Northfield Seminary for Young Women. By autumn the seminary opened for young women who were given scholarships from funds provided by philanthropists.
At the Northfield Seminary, young women studied liberal arts and sciences from a decidedly Christian worldview that was enriched by classes in Bible, church history, and theology. The Northfield School produced so many able young women—most of whom headed to college and the mission field—that the vision expanded to offer a similar school for young men.
In the early s, Mount Herman opened its doors for boys, and the dormitory and classes were filled with socially and economically disadvantaged young men. Black, brown, and yellow-skinned men and women attended these schools, and Christian speakers and preachers—black, white, and Asian—ascended the pulpits and podiums of both schools.
Such diversity was unknown in most schools in the United States at that time. Moody felt constrained to launch one more school. During his preaching tours all over New England and the northeast in the late s and s, Moody discovered a class of women he wanted to help. Typically they were rural women with little or no formal schooling. Countless urban churches were calling for women to do evangelism and house-to-house personal work among the urban poor.
Moody wanted to connect the women called to serve with the cities needing workers. The Northfield Seminary was no option for these women, many of whom were barely literate; furthermore, because they were already in their twenties, thirties, or forties, they would never have meshed with the Northfield Seminary culture.
The Chicago Bible Institute was certainly an option, but it only had room for —and it was [always] full. Also, it was a thousand miles away from most of the women seeking help. Moody asked the manager if he could rent the three-story, red-brick structure that was graced on three sides with lounging verandas overlooking large lawns and gardens. The spacious hotel with its well-appointed rooms, complete with large windows, draperies, beds, writing desks, and comfortable furniture, was only used between April and September.
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