Danville Bible Experience

01 Creation

Danville · property secured · zoning approved

Walk the six days. Then the rest of the book.

Two aims: share the gospel, and reawaken interest in missions. About seventy rooms around a central walk — Genesis to the mission field. The campus is in hand. What remains is to build it.

Come walk the wing See the path
Front lawn and red brick campus of the former children's center in Danville, Illinois
Aerial pass over the Logan Avenue campus, July 2026
  • GiftedBoth properties, nearly free
  • ~30kSq ft brick campus
  • ~70Rooms around a central walk
  • ApprovedSpecial use as a cultural facility
A volunteer on a ladder grinding metal in a tiled room, sparks falling
Inside the wings — the work is already underway
A large group of adults and children standing in the shop under work lights
In the shop
Volunteers gathered on the porch of the brick campus
Pitching in

Now

The hard gates are behind us. The walk is in front.

  1. Property
    Orphanage and shop received. Boarded, locked, break-ins stopped
    Done
  2. Zoning
    Town board approved special use as a cultural facility
    Done
  3. Now
    Old Testament wing stripped to brick. Roof patching and plans underway
    We're here
  4. Build
    Three wings still to clear. Construction drawings. Rooms fitted along the walk
  5. Open
    Guests walk the halls — about five years of work from here

Both buildings came to us nearly free — provision we took as the Lord’s hand in it. The previous owner — a local nonprofit that had served families on this campus — would rather see the place used than watch it fall in. The brick began as a children’s home in the 1890s; later it housed children’s services. We took the transfer as a charge. The orphanage and the shop five minutes away still had break-ins when they came; they are boarded, locked, and in use now. When the property came, the Lord placed in our hearts the desire to glorify the Father, and that remains the chief aim of this work. What is in front of us is the labor itself: roofs, remaining demolition, and fitting about thirty thousand square feet with rooms already sketched — from the six days of Creation to a last hall of missionaries. That is the partnership we are inviting: not to find a site, but to finish one for His glory.

Why

Share the gospel. Reawaken interest in missions.

Those are the two reasons this museum exists. Not a hallway of glass cases — rooms you step into, so the story of Jesus Christ is near enough to touch, and the unfinished work of the Gospel among the nations is hard to walk past.

Guests will walk the six days of Creation, stand in the timber of the ark, sit in Abraham's tent under a night sky, and pass the veils of the Tabernacle. Later they will come through the catacombs, Tyndale's smuggling docks, and a last hall of men and women who carried the Word across oceans.

  • Creation, walked in six days
  • The Fall
  • Inside the ark
  • Abraham's tent
  • The Tabernacle
  • The Cross
  • The catacombs
  • Tyndale's docks
Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. John 14:13
We will not conceal them from their children, but tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wondrous works that He has done. Psalm 78:4
A group of volunteers on the lawn in front of the brick campus

Path

Four halls around one walk. About seventy rooms.

The path is how those two aims are kept: walk the story until the Gospel is plain, then walk the lives of people who took it to the nations. Guests will not browse cases. The rooms gather around a central hall — the sequence is already on paper.

  1. Old Testament
  2. Creation
  3. The Fall
  4. Noah
  5. Babel
  6. Abraham
  7. Isaac & Jacob
  8. Joseph
  9. Moses
  10. Wilderness
  11. Tabernacle
  12. Rahab
  13. Joshua
  14. Samson
  15. Ruth
  16. David
  17. Solomon
  18. Temple
  19. Elijah
  20. Jonah
  21. Daniel
  22. Esther
  23. New Testament
  24. Nativity
  25. John
  26. Disciples
  27. Miracles
  28. Parables
  29. The Cross
  30. Resurrection
  31. Pentecost
  32. The Book
  33. House church
  34. Catacombs
  35. Jerome
  36. Canon
  37. Gutenberg
  38. Tyndale
  39. KJV
  40. Dead Sea Scrolls
  41. Missions
  42. Carey
  43. Müller
  44. Livingstone
  45. Taylor
  46. Slessor
  47. Carmichael
  48. Liddell
  49. Elliot

Hall one

Old Testament

Begin in a twenty-foot walk through the six days. Then the garden broken, the ark from the inside, a desert camp under stars, Sinai, and the Tabernacle courts.

Hall two

New Testament

A lantern-lit manger, then Galilee — nets, a boat hull, parables in the countryside. The Cross in spare stone, the garden tomb at dawn, Pentecost. The Gospel, walked rather than explained from a plaque.

Hall three

The early church & the Book

A house church in a Roman home. The catacombs. Then Gutenberg, Tyndale's hidden cargo, and the Great Isaiah Scroll unrolled on the far wall.

Hall four

Missions & the Word

Carey in Bengal, Livingstone on foot, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael, Jim Elliot — lives meant to reawaken interest in missions, not leave it as history. The last room asks what the whole walk has been building toward: what will you do with Jesus Christ?

Inside a room

Not a plaque to read. A place to stand in.

Each room is built to be walked — light and set, sound in the air, even the smell of the place — so the story is felt before it is explained.

Artist’s rendition of the Jonah room: underwater path through the fish on the left, Jonah under a lean-to facing Nineveh on the right
Artist’s rendition — Jonah and the fish, then Jonah and Nineveh
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Habakkuk 2:14

Sites

Two properties. Already received.

Both buildings came to us nearly free — provision we took as the Lord’s hand in it. The previous owner — a local nonprofit — would rather see the place used than watch it fall in. We took it as a charge. The place began as a children’s home; later it housed children’s services. Buildings arrived leaking, overgrown, and still seeing break-ins. They are boarded and in use. Special use as a cultural facility is approved.

The campus

702 N Logan Avenue

A former children’s home in Danville, Illinois — about 30,000 sq ft of brick, a gym, a courtyard, and four wings around a central hall. The Old Testament wing is down to the brick. Three wings still need the same cleanup.

The workshop

The shop, five minutes away

A metal building of about 10,000 sq ft, where the rooms and displays will be built. A gifted collection of metal and woodworking tools is waiting on a reroofed shop.

A volunteer walking a dusty hallway with hanging wires and a ladder
Hallway demolition — people in the building
White corrugated metal shop building with roll-up door on a grassy lot
The shop — about 10,000 sq ft, five minutes from Logan Avenue

The campus from the air — brick wings, courtyard, and the parking that will greet guests.

A walk through the future halls, July 2026. Quiet, on purpose — this is the building before exhibits.

Along the brick
Brick corner of the former children's center, white windows and a metal fire escape
The brick campus at Logan Avenue
Leaf-filled courtyard between brick wings with green doors and a white canopy
The courtyard
Volunteers loading debris during campus cleanup
Cleanup on campus
A group gathered together on the campus
Fellowship after the work

Danville from above — the town that will hold the walk.

News

What's been happening.

  • Zoning approved as a cultural facility

    The building had been commercial office. The town board voted special use for a museum. That vote is done. About seventy rooms are sketched around a central walk. Drawings and the build are next.

  • Old Testament wing cleared to brick

    MAG teams spent several weeks on demolition. The quantity of debris does not show in photographs. Three wings remain.

  • Roofs, tools, and drawings

    A local roofer gave the materials to stop the flat-roof leaks. Shingles are being tucked in until a full replacement. A gifted collection of metal and woodworking tools is waiting on a reroofed shop.

Tell us a little more

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Partner

The property is the easy part. The rooms are the work.

We are not raising money to find a site. We are inviting partners to finish rooms whose work is to share the gospel and to reawaken interest in missions. Rooms to underwrite run from the low tens of thousands; the full build is on the order of several million. Smaller gifts go straight into materials — lumber, lighting, paint — and they add up faster than you’d think. Come walk the wing. Decide if this is yours to help finish. When the doors open, a modest admission will help cover the cost of keeping the rooms running.

  • Underwrite the build

    Roofs, remaining demolition, and the conversion of thirty thousand square feet into exhibit space.

  • Fund a hall

    Old Testament (nearly thirty rooms), New Testament, the early church and the printed Bible, or missions — each hall is a discrete piece of work.

  • Tools and trades

    The shop will make the displays. Wood, metal, 3D printing, laser work, film, and audio all have a home here.

  • Counsel

    Museum operators, contractors, and people who have taken a historic building through a public process.

  • Pray

    Wisdom and strength in every detail — that we would, like Nehemiah, find favor for the work, and that the Father be glorified.

  • Come walk it

    A site visit is the shortest briefing. The brick, the shop, and the emptied wing are easier in person. “How will they hear without a preacher?” — Romans 10:14. The rooms are how that question stays near.