D. L. Moody – Shoe Salesman and Hero of the Faith

Introduction

What can a 17 year old New England farm boy with a fifth grade education like D. L. Moody expect to achieve in life in the mid 19th century?

What can a poorly educated shoe salesman, by the benevolent appointment of an uncle in Boston who owned a shoe store, expect to achieve in bustling Boston.

What can happen to dramatically alter the course of such a life as Dwight L. Moody's as he was just becoming successful as a shoe salesman?

Dwight Moody's life story was probably as shocking to him as it is to readers of it today.

I.  D. L. Moody - The Early Years

Source - D. L. Moody Story, Moody Bible Institute, moody.edu

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Dwight Lyman Moody was born the sixth child of Edwin and Betsy Holton Moody in Northfield, Mass. on February 5, 1837.

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Dwight's formal education ended in the fifth grade, and he rapidly tired of life on the farm. He left home at age 17, seeking employment in Boston.

Failing to secure a desirable position, he asked his uncle, Samuel Holton, for a job. Reluctantly, Uncle Samuel hired him to work in the retail shoe store he owned. However, to keep young Moody out of mischief, employment was conditional upon his attendance at the Mt. Vernon Congregational Church.

Salvation

At Mt. Vernon Moody became part of the Sunday school class taught by Edward Kimball. On April 21, 1855, Kimball visited the Holton Shoe Store, found him in a stockroom, and there spoke to him of the love of Christ. Shortly thereafter, Moody accepted that love and devoted his life to serving God. The following year he move to Chicago with dreams of making his fortune in the shoe business. As success in selling shoes came, so did an interest in providing a Sunday school class for Chicago's children and the local Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA).

II.   Christianity Today Article

Christianity Today has a Christian History section on it's website with a very readable article covering the life and ministry of D. L. Moody. You can find it at the link below.

Dwight L Moody, Revivalist with a Common Touch

III.   A Video Biography - Dwight Lyman Moody - Totally Surrendered to God

The Youtube video below presents an oral / photographic means of telling the life story of D. L. Moody. It is quite thorough and runs 10 minutes.

I was not able to discover who produced the video but I watched it enough to find that it agrees with the textual materials I have researched.

IV.   Delving Deeper

Now that we've presented the essentials of Moody's life story, I'd like to look at some interesting (I hope) and important details about the "How" and "Why" of Moody's successful life.

Early Ministry - Social Work in Chicago

Soon after his conversion to Christ, Moody was moved to transfer much of his business energies into Christ centered social work. Here is how Moody.edu describes these early endeavors.

YMCA

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During the revival of 1857 to 1858, Moody became more involved with the YMCA, performing janitorial jobs for the organization and serving wherever they needed him. In 1860, when he left the business world, he began spending more and more time serving the organization. In fact, in the 1861 to 1862 annual report, Moody was praised for all his efforts. Although they could not pay him, the YMCA recommended he stay "employed" as city missionary.

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Mission Sunday School

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Meanwhile, Moody's Mission Sunday school flourished. What set this school apart was Moody's desire to reach the "lost" youth of the city, the children with little to no education, less than ideal family situations, and poor economic circumstances. Soon the Sunday school outgrew the converted saloon used as a meeting hall. As the classes grew, associates encouraged Moody to begin his own church. Eventually, on Feb. 28, 1864, the Illinois Street Church (now The Moody Church) opened in its own building with Moody as pastor.

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It is said the Moody was a great recruiter of "hoodlum children" for his first Sunday School classes. His success included innovative inducements to the street kids with prizes, free pony rides and picnics.

It was also said that Moody was a far better recruiter and organizer than he was a speaker, due to his limited education and grasp of grammar and vocabulary. He agreed with the assessment but added that for the Lord, "I do the the best I can with what I've got."

V.   Moody the Evangelist - More Innovation

As Moody transitioned from social work to evangelism he examined the then current means of conducting evangelistic crusades and found them wanting. This was partly due to his own limited preaching abilities and partly because he was convinced that an altered approach and a more strategically designed "game plan" could greatly increase attendance and solid conversion experiences.

Moody met gospel hymn singer Ira Sankey at a YMCA convention and was convinced that the addition of a featured gospel singer to the crusade programs would soften the hearts of those in attendance and make his preaching job shorter and more effective.

Gospel Music

Crusade Strategy and Logistics

Moody took the best of what he found to be the accepted way to design and conduct an evangelistic crusade and then applied his own brand of what we call "outside the box" thinking.

One element was to organize a number of churches in the target community to work together, another was to always use a secular venue not a church building. A third was to provide a prayer or consultation room or area for the use of lay counselors to meet those who had just professed a faith in Jesus Christ.

If you have ever attended a Billy Graham Crusade or seen one on TV, you will see all of these concepts in powerful force. Other evangelists have built of this foundation as well.

Was Moody a Successful Evangelist?

It has been estimated that Moody preached directly to 100 million souls without the aid of any form of electronic media assistance.

VI.   Education and Leader Training

As Moody matured in years, he saw more clearly the need to bring women more prominently into the evangelism sphere and to train both men and women for leadership roles in ministry and outreaches of various kinds.

The first major step in this process was in Chicago where he and his wife met Emma Dryer.

Moody's Schools

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Moody was on the cutting edge of ministry, and in 1879, 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.

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In 1886, Dryer's prayers were answered and the Chicago Evangelization Society (today, Moody Bible Institute) was founded. 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.

That same year, Moody assembled a large group of college students at Mount Hermon for the first "College Students' Summer School." This conference would birth the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. By 1911, it was estimated that 5,000 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.

Source - D. l. Moody Story - Moody Bible Institute moody.edu​

Relive my life D. L. Moody

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