Dwight L. Moody Biographical Summary

Lyle W. Dorsett A Passion for Souls: The Life of D. L. Moody Chicago: Moody, 1997 Chronology 1837 1841 1847 1854 1855 1856 1858 1860 1861 1862 1864 1865 1867 Dwight Lyman Moody is born in Northfield, Mass., the sixth child (of nine) of Edwin and Betsy Moody. Moody’s father dies; creditors take almost all the family’s possessions. The Moody family begins attending and are baptized in Northfield’s Unitarian church by a conservative pastor; Dwight attends Sunday School. Moody begins spending winters doing chores for a family in Greenfield. Moves to Boston; becomes sales clerk in his uncle’s shoe store. Prospers financially, sends money home to family; starts increasing his learning at YMCA, Sunday School at his uncle’s Congregational church. Moody is converted (or takes a big step in that direction) in the shoe store at the invitation of a deacon of his uncle’s church. (Becomes member in 1856.) Moves to Chicago. Works as a shoe sales clerk again, makes money rapidly, provides for family. Joins Congregational church but attends a Methodist Sunday School and Baptist prayer meeting. Zealously rounds up young men to come to church. Starts Sunday School in an abandoned saloon in “the Sands,” the poorest and most dangerous neighborhood in Chicago. School moves into a North Market dance hall in 1859. Gets the assistance and friendship of dry goods magnate J. V. Farwell and Emma Revell. Abandons business for full-time ministry; performs voluntary janitorial work and sleeps on chairs in the Chicago YMCA, which sanctions his Sunday School. Later leads the YMCA’s charity and evangelistic initiatives. Evangelizes and distributes literature to volunteer soldiers mustered at Camp Douglas; becomes the first Christian Commission delegate to minister to Union troops, especially the wounded. He ministers for the duration of the Civil War (to 1865). Marries Emma Revell. Money is raised and a building is built for the Sunday School. First child, Emma, born. Moody founds the Illinois Street Church, an nondenominational church designed to be welcoming to the poor; functions as pastor though not ordained. Becomes president of YMCA until 1870, perpetuates aggressive evangelistic and social benevolence programs. Raises funds for a huge multipurpose building dedicated in 1867. The Moodys’ recuperative trip to Britain turns into a fourmonth evangelistic tour. Irishman Henry Moorhouse pushes Moody to let him preach at Moody’s church; Moody’s apprehension of the grace and the love of God is profoundly expanded by Moorhouse’s Dorsett, A Passion for Souls  1 summarized by Cory Hartman 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1878 1879 1880 1881 1886 1887 1890 1893 preaching. Pioneers weekly-published “unified lesson plans” for Sunday Schools, distributed as far as other states. Second child, William Revell, born. At Moody’s urging, his brother-in-law Fleming H. Revell begins publishing Christian periodicals, books, and pamphlets. Emma Dryer commits to full-time ministry in Chicago and meets the Moodys. Great Chicago Fire destroys Moody’s house, church, and the YMCA building (which itself was a second building, rebuilt after an earlier fire). Rebuilds church as North Side Tabernacle. Moody receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit while raising rebuilding funds in New York City. Returns to Britain; preaching contains new emphasis on the Holy Spirit. Emma Dryer convinces Moody of premillennialism. At Moody’s direction, Dryer launches a Bible-oriented evangelistic training school for women (and later laymen). Moody tours Britain for two years, this time with singer Ira Sankey, to great acclaim. Sankey publishes first songbook. Moody develops “inquiry meetings” in which seekers could talk with trained counselors about the state of their souls one-on-one. Moody sets the policy of requiring interdenominational prayer meetings before he accepted an invitation to a city. Opposition and slander from critical ministers (primarily a few Scottish Calvinists) greatly increases. Upon returning from Britain, Moody buys a farm next to his mother’s homestead in Northfield and makes it his home base for the rest of his life. Moody and Sankey begin years of highly successful campaigns focused on large American urban centers coordinated with D. W. Whittle and P. P. Bliss. Revell begins publishing authorized editions of Moody’s works. Moody begins shifting away from extended campaigns in favor of shorter ones (carried on for the rest of his life). Concentrates his energy on developing educational systems to equip a vast number of urban lay missionaries. Third child, Paul, born. Moody founds the Northfield Seminary for poor girls. Launches a Christian conference series at Northfield, headlined by the biggest names in Englishspeaking Christianity. Founds the Mount Hermon School for poor boys. Launches a new conference series, the “College Students’ Summer School.” Takes the lead in founding the Chicago Evangelistic Society to equip local home missionaries, building on Emma Dryer’s work. In 1889 CES gives birth to the Chicago (later Moody) Bible Institute, supervised by R. A. Torrey. Launches Northfield Bible Training School, a program to equip working-class women to become foreign and home missionaries that operates out of the Hotel Northfield during the off-season. The Chicago Bible Institute’s mission expands to pastoral training but not with a standard seminary curriculum. Dorsett, A Passion for Souls  2 summarized by Cory Hartman 1895 1899 Moody holds major campaign during the Chicago World’s Fair. Moody organizes the Bible Institute Colportage Association to distribute cheap, short, paperback editions of his works by CBI-graduated missionaries and Moody’s own campaigns. (In 1941 it becomes Moody Press.) Moody dies and is buried in Northfield. Selected Themes* Business and Evangelism Moody’s ceaseless drive and ability to make a sale in business were mirrored perfectly in his evangelistic success. Other parallels include the efficiency and discipline with which he organized and conducted campaigns and services and his canny flexibility to innovate methods and operations to win the most people (e.g., inquiry meetings). The Love of God Once Henry Moorhouse impressed Moody with his sermons on John 3:16, the predominant theme of Moody’s preaching became the love of God for all people. This was imitated by other evangelists and pastors Moody influenced such as Henry Drummond. The Holy Spirit Moody’s experience that he termed baptism in the Holy Spirit involved an intensely emotional apprehension of God’s love and liberated him to minister more discriminatingly and deliberately. People around him noted that the already dynamic man seemed even more spiritually powerful, especially in his preaching. Moody’s emphasis on being filled with the Holy Spirit was continued by R. A. Torrey. Team Ministry Moody frequently started and managed ministries alone, but he quickly found friends to help him. He was adept at turning new ministries over to trusted people to run them effectively so he could move on to launch another new endeavor. Also, beginning with his 1873 British tour, Moody shared preaching and counseling duties with local pastors and lay leaders wherever he was, often preferring them to speak rather than himself. However, despite his gradually learned ability to delegate, he always held ultimate authority alone. Sometimes Moody used his power disruptively when he returned after a long absence to a place where a trusted associate had matters in hand and suddenly began issuing orders. Employment of Women Moody was mentored by a woman named “Mother Phillips” in his * The themes listed here are selected and described by me based on Dorsett’s work. Dorsett’s own summary is in his final chapter (ch. 12), where he lists ten “keys to D. L. Moody’s effectiveness”: commitment, a willingness to take risks, vision, Moody’s sense of the Holy Spirit, a high view of Scripture, a Christ-centered life, a confidence in young people, teachability, humility, and love for souls. Dorsett also discusses Moody’s handling of finances, abrasiveness, and willingness to hide from problems involving personal conflict. Finally, Dorsett looks at Moody’s positions on certain controversial issues (fundraising, labor-management disputes, and parachurches and independent churches) and his legacy as a mobilizer of missionaries. Dorsett, A Passion for Souls  3 summarized by Cory Hartman early days in Chicago and had Emma Revell at his right hand in the Sunday School before they were married. Forever after it was automatic for him to employ women in all sorts of ministry, from his future wife Emma Revell to Emma Dryer, who superintended the training school that later became the Chicago Bible Institute, to the thousands of women trained in the schools he founded like the Northfield Bible Training School. Ecumenism Moody’s ecumenism was not so much principled as practical. He was simply uninterested in the fine points or emphases of doctrine that distinguished denominations and movements (liberal vs. evangelical) within denominations. To win as large a set of hearers as possible, he even carefully avoided criticizing Catholicism. Naturally related to this pragmatic ecumenism was Moody’s devotion of his organizational energy to developing interdenominational parachurch ministries and schools and nondenominational churches. Moody was happy to work with anyone who wanted to work with him. But by the end of his life, many friends who would talk to him were no longer willing to talk to each other. In some cases (as at Northfield Seminary) internecine quarrels threatened the ministry, and Moody lacked the ability or will to intervene in conflict to reestablish operational unity. Moody fretted about the future of these relationships as the fundamentalist-modernist controversy loomed ahead. Education and Mission Moody had no more than four years of formal schooling. But despite the legend that has grown around him, he was not “uneducated”; he was self-educated. He made up for lost time by asking questions of every minister, Bible teacher, and holy person he could find and assiduously going to Sunday Schools. Always pragmatic, Moody experimented with methods to find and employ whatever worked for his students, especially if they were uneducated and even illiterate. As an example, his novel ability to teach utterly undisciplined children in the Sands Sunday School was astounding. As Moody’s methods were practical, his goals were practical also. His shift in 1878 toward founding educational institutions came because he recognized that the crucial place to evangelize America was America’s cities, and the most effective mode of evangelism was one-on-one. Therefore, a virtual army of lay evangelists needed to be raised and given just enough biblical and ministerial training to meet the need. The Poor Moody grew up in serious poverty and always had sensitive compassion for the spiritual, educational, and material needs of the poor. His Sunday School in the Sands and his first church plant on Illinois St. were launched with these in mind, and he was always willing to do things innovatively to make an effective connection with people who did not fit in to middle-class churches. Moody’s mid- and late career evangelistic campaigns possessed an unusual appeal to people of all economic and social classes, and much money raised by the campaigns was channeled into charitable enterprises. Further, even though his schools for poor children at Northfield and Mount Hermon were only indirectly related to his urban evangelistic vision, they may have been closest to his heart. Nevertheless, Moody’s friendships and his ministries’ heavy reliance on underwriting from big businessmen made him appear to later generations as a tool of robber barons and an uncritical endorser of the social inequities of his day. Moody seemed to believe that individuals being converted to faith in Christ and reforming their behavior was the key to social uplift, though he also strongly believed in direct, non-governmental charity to ease the material challenge to social mobility. Dorsett, A Passion for Souls  4 summarized by Cory Hartman