D. L. Moody was a nineteenth-century American evangelist whose passion for reaching the poor and spiritually lost transformed lives across America and Europe. After coming to faith in Boston, he gave up a career in business to start a mission school in Chicago that grew into a thriving church. Despite setbacks like the Great Chicago Fire, Moody rebuilt and expanded his ministry, preaching to millions and pioneering new evangelistic methods, letting his light shine to glorify the Lord (Matthew 5:16). His life was one of zeal for helping others, just as Scripture teaches (Proverbs 19:17; Isaiah 58:10). He also founded schools and the Moody Bible Institute to train ordinary people for gospel ministry. This is in keeping with passages like Proverbs 22:6 and Ephesians 4:11-12. Moody’s life demonstrates how God uses humble, surrendered people to make an extraordinary and lasting impact for His kingdom.
Dwight Lyman Moody (1837—1899), known as D. L. Moody, was an influential American evangelist and publisher in the nineteenth century. His father died when D. L. was only four years old, and his mother struggled to support herself and her nine children. So D. L. and his siblings were sent away to receive room and board. At seventeen, D. L. moved to Boston in search of work, but ultimately sold shoes at his uncle’s store. During this time, D.L.’s uncle required him to go to church, where he attended a Sunday school taught by Edward Kimball. Kimball emphasized God's love for D. L., and by age eighteen, D. L. Moody had converted to evangelical Christianity.
Moody then set out to make his own fortune selling shoes in Chicago. However, his new found faith helped him realize that helping the poor was more important than amassing wealth. So he began a mission Sunday school in a Chicago slum in 1858, and by 1861 he had left his business to concentrate solely on mission work. In 1862, he married Emma C. Revell, one of the Sunday school teachers at his mission. By 1864, the mission had grown into the Illinois Street Independent Church (now Moody Memorial Church). Besides his work at the mission-turned-church, D. L. Moody was also involved with the U. S. Christian Commission of the YMCA. This role allowed him to visit the battlefront of the Civil War nine times to deliver encouraging speeches and preach the gospel. After the Civil War, Moody continued his work in Chicago effectively combining social work and evangelism. He enticed children to his Sunday school classes by offering candy and pony rides, and he attracted German and Scandinavian immigrants by offering English classes and evening prayer meetings.
Unfortunately, the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871 destroyed D. L's mission church, his home, and the YMCA where he was president. He was determined to rebuild the church and the YMCA, so he traveled to New York to raise funds. During this trip, Moody felt he received a new call and a vision to evangelize the world in his generation. In the summer of 1873, he was invited to preach in the British Isles. He traveled with his family; his friend and musician, Ira Sankey, joined him on the tour. Two years later, D. L. Moody returned as an internationally famous revivalist. He decided to settle his family back in Northfield, Massachusetts where he had been born. Alternating between Europe and America, D. L. Moody and Ira Sankey held revivals for more than one hundred million people. They pioneered evangelistic techniques like canvassing neighborhoods door-to-door prior to a crusade, gaining the cooperation of local churches despite denominational differences, petitioning the philanthropic support of local businesses, and renting a large central building in which to hold the crusade.
While these techniques were incredibly effective, D. L. saw the need for training lay people in biblical studies to continue the work of evangelism. So in 1879, he opened the Northfield Seminary for Young Women and two years later he opened the Mount Hermon School for Boys. In the summer of 1880, to spread dispensationalism and fundamentalism, he held the first of many summer Bible conferences at his home in Northfield. Finally in 1886, with the help of Emma Dryer who had been overseeing a ministry in Chicago to specifically train women for mission work, D. L. Moody opened the Bible-Work Institute of the Chicago Evangelization Society (now called Moody Bible Institute). After establishing this school, he started the 61 Portages Association (now Moody Press) to publish and sell low-cost religious books and tracts. D. L. Moody continued to be a dynamic speaker, holding revivals and crusades in major cities, and even preaching until just months before he died surrounded by his family back at home in Northfield, Massachusetts in December 1899.
D. L. Moody understood both the physical and the spiritual needs of the poor, developed effective techniques to fill both kinds of needs, and left a legacy teaching future generations to do the same.
Moody’s life reminds us that God can use ordinary people with humble beginnings to make an extraordinary impact for His kingdom. When we surrender our ambitions and use our gifts to serve others—especially the poor and spiritually lost—we reflect Christ’s heart. Moody combined evangelism with deep compassion, showing us that the gospel is meant to be lived out both in word and deed. His determination to rebuild after loss and his vision for training future generations challenges us to stay faithful and forward-looking in our service. Like Moody, we can trust that when we follow God’s call wholeheartedly, He will multiply our efforts beyond what we could imagine.
Quotes from D.L. Moody:
"Faith makes all things possible... love makes all things easy."
"The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation."
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at something that doesn't really matter.”
" He who kneels the most, stands the best.”
“The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.”
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
