Dr. George Sweeting (1924–2024)
A reflection by Jerry Jenkins, former Trustee chair and author of “A Generous Impulse: The Story of George Sweeting”
Moody Radio Programming Note: Stay tuned for a 1-hr. special this Saturday (Sept. 14) at 3 pm (CT), “Dr. George Sweeting: A Tribute,” which will air across our Moody Radio network of stations and select affiliates. More information about this special feature, including a 5-minute audio feature and sermon clips of Dr. Sweeting, can be found at www.moodyradio.org/sweeting.
Dr. George Sweeting, who served as president of Moody Bible Institute from 1971 to 1987, and then as Chancellor until the last day of the 20th century, was at heart an evangelist and soul winner. He died on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at 99 years old.
“An indelible mark has been placed on this world as well as Moody through the incredible life and ministry of George Sweeting,” says Dr. Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute. “His legacy is marked by a deep love for his family, the Church, and the transformative power of the Gospel. While we mourn with his family and those whose lives were touched by him, we echo the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 4 that we do so with hope, knowing he is in the presence of the Lord and we will be reunited with him one day.”
Of the 10 presidents since the ministry’s founding by D.L. Moody in 1886, Sweeting was the first Moody alumnus to have held the office. Dr. Jobe is the second. Sweeting was a striking figure, tall and trim with clear blue eyes. Some quipped that he looked like a president the board of trustees assembled from a kit.
Upbringing and Calling
The third of six children born to immigrant Scots—and the first in his family to be born in America—George embarked on a course of leadership from his youth. He pointed to being raised in a strong Christian home and a vibrant church as keys to his spiritual development. In 1938, when he was 13 years old, his father moved the family to a new church—the Hawthorne (New Jersey) Gospel Church—because of its reputation for a strong youth ministry.
The pastor, Herrmann Braunlin, was a modest man who had neither college nor seminary training, but Sweeting described him as a visionary. Braunlin pastored that church for 62 years and modeled for young George innovative ways to both serve people and reach them for Christ.
It was at Hawthorne Gospel as a teenager that George Sweeting saw a visiting evangelist draw chalk illustrations as he spoke. George built an easel in the garage and practiced every day, dreaming of becoming an artist. He became more and more active with the youth group that was not only thoroughly trained but also regularly sent out to minister.
Sweeting enjoyed telling people that Friday, Aug. 16, 1940, was the most memorable night of his life. Not yet 16, after hearing a dramatic challenge from a pastor named David Otis Fuller, George reported to his own pastor, “The Lord spoke powerfully to me tonight. I’m yielding my life to Christ. I’ve been a halfhearted Christian, but I feel a call to His service. From now on, I’m going to be all out. I will serve Christ anywhere, anytime.”
Those who knew George Sweeting say that became his legacy.
Preparing to Serve
At Hawthorne Gospel, he deepened his relationship with Christ, was baptized, met the love of his life, married, was ordained and eventually returned to accept an associate pastor’s role.
George’s mother, Mary, believed there was no higher calling than the ministry. He and both of his brothers went on to become pastors, and George would become one of the evangelical leaders of the 20th century.
During his senior year at Moody, he was stricken with testicular cancer and nearly died. His doctor told him he was not likely to ever have children. After graduating late in 1945, Sweeting and his childhood sweetheart, Hilda, married. He earned his BA from Gordon College, assisted Pastor Braunlin at Hawthorne for 18 months, then took his first pastorate at Grace Church in Passaic, New Jersey. Meanwhile, he and Hilda welcomed their first miracle son, with three more to follow.
Evangelistic Ministry
After a couple of years as a pastor, Sweeting continued to feel the call to evangelism and became an itinerant preacher for nine years. He traveled with various associates, preaching almost every night and also singing, doing chalk drawings, and carting in an 18-wheeler a massive canvas tent in which he held his meetings in cities all over America.
George considered this some of the best leadership training he ever had, enlisting the help of a hundred men at every stop, assigning ten foremen, and working alongside them to unload, erect, tear down, and reload the tent.
In the early 1950s he added international trips every third year, while Hilda supported him from home, raising their four sons.
By the early 1960s George knew it was time to return to the pastorate. While many large, prestigious churches had sought him for their pulpits, Sweeting felt drawn to tiny Madison Avenue Baptist of Paterson, New Jersey. Though dying, it had been the founder of his childhood church, Hawthorne Gospel, just 10 miles away.
Pastoral Ministry
By 1965, he had helped rejuvenate the church, seen the congregation grow, and drawn praise from the media and the city government for upgrading the area. He and Hilda were 41 and 39 respectively and never expected to leave New Jersey.
Then another dying innercity church came calling. The Moody Church of Chicago had been without a pastor since 1962 and had dwindled to 500 members, despite its 4,200-seat sanctuary. After hearing Sweeting preach at Moody Bible Institute events, the elders asked him to speak at the church.
Later the elders sought his counsel on their plight, and Sweeting frankly advised them. They asked him to consider taking the pastorate, and, stunned, he declined. The elders asked if he would pray about it, and, he later joked to friends, “I made the mistake of saying I would.”
George Sweeting became pastor of The Moody Church in August of 1966, bringing his creativity and evangelistic fervor to the task. Many Moody Bible Institute students began attending, as did Moody President Dr. William Culbertson, who soon asked George to join Moody’s board of trustees as alumni representative.
Leading Moody Bible Institute
As Sweeting became more and more known in the Midwest for rejuvenating The Moody Church, he also grew in demand as a conference speaker around the country. It wasn’t long before Dr. Culbertson asked Sweeting to consider replacing him as president of Moody Bible Institute.
Sweeting was installed as the sixth president in September of 1971 and almost immediately initiated a 15-year plan pointing toward Moody’s 1986 Centennial. He plunged into plans for growth, challenging employees to dream what God might do through the organization.
He began a new nationally syndicated half-hour radio program, Moody Presents, that presented the gospel and familiarized people with Moody. He also wrote a column in Moody Magazine and wrote several books for Moody Publishers including How to Begin the Christian Life, How to Continue the Christian Life, How to Finish the Christian Life, and The Pursuit of Excellence.
Sweeting initiated several massive evangelistic campaigns during his presidency including an effort at the 1972 Munich Olympics, a 1973 trip to the British Isles with the Moody Chorale, and the Chicago Evangelism Outreach in 1974–76.
He began the Moody Pastor’s Conference in 1973, and the Moody Bible Israel Tour began under him, as did satellite evening schools, the Master’s Degree program, and the push for accreditation, accomplished by the end of the 1980s.
It was also during his tenure that Moody Publishers began publishing the Ryrie Study Bible, one of its best-known products.
Under his leadership, Moody Radio began a satellite-fed network from Chicago. Respected as an industry leader and a trusted voice, Moody Radio has grown to include more than 69 full power stations and translators, seven digital channels, a podcast network, and more than 1,500 outlets that carry its programming, reaching millions of listeners through terrestrial stations and digital platforms in both English and Spanish.
The growth of Moody’s Chicago campus on the Near North Side is probably Sweeting’s most extraordinary accomplishment. During his time the property grew from two city blocks to more than 10, allowing for future expansion.
In 1984, Dr. Sweeting battled cancer yet again, this time of the prostate. He rebounded to full health but began planning for the end of his presidency to follow not long after Moody’s
Centennial celebration in 1986. That gala culminated with a massive rally at an arena in Chicago with Billy Graham as the guest speaker.
Sweeting stepped down from the presidency and became Chancellor at the end of July 1987, serving in that role until 1999.
Finishing the Race Well
In 2003, he re-entered local church ministry and became a Director of Senior Adult Ministry, a role he would hold until 2018 when he retired.
In one of his final addresses to the students and employees of Moody Bible Institute, during President’s Chapel on Sept. 18, 2012, the then 88-year-old Sweeting recounted the life and legacy of D.L. Moody. After sharing the words of Henry Varley that deeply impacted Moody—that the world had yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Jesus Christ—Sweeting asked the students, “Will you be that man? Will you be that woman? I pray so. Hallelujah, amen and amen.”
Sweeting then wrote his last book Full Circle with Moody Publishers in 2022. He not only wrote about how to begin the Christian life, frail and fallible though he was, he showed us how to finish the Christian life.
These are his last written words, a declaration of faith on July 16, 2024:
“I yield my best and all to be used by the Lord Jesus Christ. May I obey you clearly dear Lord in every area of my life. Help me to serve you fully. I, here and now, declare I am a full follower of Jesus Christ."
Dr. Sweeting is survived by his wife, Hilda, and sons George, James, Donald and Robert, along with multiple grandchildren and great grandchildren.