NORTHFIELD — About 150 people came to the Moody Center’s launch event in the campus auditorium this week, which featured presentations from Moody Center directors, multiple musical numbers and talks from two pastors, one of them wearing a Dwight L. Moody costume.
The three-hour event on Tuesday gave little new information on the Moody Center’s plans to develop its campus though. In August, subscribers to the Moody Center’s mailing list were sent an email that mentioned vague plans to build a 120-room hotel, a housing complex and an outdoor recreation area on the campus. In a later conversation, Moody Center President Emmitt Mitchell added that construction likely wouldn’t begin for at least five years.
At the Tuesday event, Mitchell reiterated the Moody Center’s goal of making Northfield a destination for scholars and lay followers of Dwight L. Moody, the Northfield-native Evangelical Christian preacher who achieved international fame in the late 19th century, whose religious retreats drew thousands of people at a time to Northfield and who founded the two schools that eventually combined to become Northfield Mount Hermon School, which is now in Gill.
“We want Northfield to be on the map in the way it was when Moody was here,” Mitchell told the audience on Tuesday.
Mitchell briefly mentioned an ongoing project to make available to researchers the archives and artifacts from Moody’s life that are owned by Northfield Mount Hermon.
The event concluded with a re-dedication of Roundtop, Moody’s gravesite. The ceremony had to be held in the auditorium due to rain.