The Moody Bible Institute will begin a $26 million expansion this May to mark its 100th anniversary, the institute`s president said Sunday.
The three-phase expansion will take three to five years, said George Sweeting, the institute`s president.
The expansion, called the ”Century II Project,” will provide a four-story academic building, a six-story parking ramp and a 4,400-seat auditorium. Also, the Torrey-Gray Auditorium at 840 N. LaSalle St. will be remodeled into a library, Sweeting said at a news conference at the Rosemont Horizon Sunday afternoon.
The $10 million first phase will provide the parking ramp and the academic building, which will include the institute`s communications program, the graduate program and the missionary training program. The $12 million second phase will provide the auditorium, which will have the latest equipment, and the remodeled library will constitute the $4 million third phase.
It is the institute`s policy that nothing is built without the institute having 60 percent of the costs in cash from major sources. The remaining 40 percent will be raised through promotions, Sweeting said.
Evangelist Billy Graham, who sat next to Sweeting at the news conference, was the main speaker at the institute`s Centennial Celebration at the Rosemont Horizon. During the ceremony, Graham presented the institute with some original sermon notes from Dwight Lyman Moody, the institute`s founder.
”What Moody was to the 19th Century, Graham is to the 20th Century,”
Sweeting said. ”He has preached to more people than anyone in the world.”
Dwight Moody also founded the Young Men`s Christian Association. He practiced what has been called ”shoe-leather” evangelism, by going out to find people to hear his Sunday sermon. His popularity grew as he spoke in towns across America and Great Britain, and his message is estimated to have reached 100 million people.
The Moody Bible Institute, 820 N. LaSalle St., began there on a single lot. It blossomed into a seven-block campus, and it has four schools, the largest of which, the correspondence school, offers adult and college courses to 30,000 students through the mail. More than 50,000 people have been taught in its North LaSalle Street buildings.
The institute also publishes 100 new titles each year, besides bibles, evangelical books and a monthly magazine with a circulation of 220,000. It owns 11 radio stations, including two in Chicago, that help produce 30 syndicated program titles. Its Institute of Science in California produces several films used in 132 countries. The Moody Keswick Conference Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., serves as a bible meeting center during the winter.
