Exciting Update: AiG Offices to Move to Incredible New Building

Yes, truly “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

Wouldn’t it be amazing for God to provide a way for AiG to have a building like the following with 36 acres and 900 parking spaces that would house our offices, an Answers Academy Christian school and Education Center, a Learning and Development Center, our critical IT systems, and more? This particular building has the infrastructure for a world-class IT data center, a fitness center, auditorium, medical center, and massive office space.

To me, this is a great and exciting example of responsibility, sovereignty, and faith all working together.

Certainly, God has redirected us at times, and we look back and understand how important that redirection was for the overall ministry.

I have always explained Christianity in terms of responsibility and sovereignty. That’s true of the gospel in that our responsibility is to proclaim the salvation message, and God sovereignly saves people by faith. When it comes to fundraising for the ministry, our responsibility is to tell people what we are doing regarding the mission, vision, and needs. We then trust our sovereign Creator to burden those he wants to support us financially. For over 40 years in the ministry, we have taken many faith steps, but responsibly (doing our due diligence in various areas), while also trusting God to provide. And although we have had many battles, and many “Red Sea events,” we have never looked back. Certainly, God has redirected us at times, and we look back and understand how important that redirection was for the overall ministry. I believe you will enjoy walking through this latest series of events as we see God’s clear miraculous hand on this ministry, directing us in ways we could never have imagined.

Back in 1994, when I would drive on I-275 to the airport in Northern Kentucky, I would see this beautiful Cincinnati Bell building. I often thought, “I so wish AiG could have a building like that, but no—that would be impossible.”

Later on, Toyota bought the building and expanded it. I would often look at it and think of all the mission-impacting things AiG could use a building like that for. In the meantime, the Lord allowed us to build the Creation Museum, offices, and the Ark Encounter.

I’ve always had a burden for equipping the younger generations, as so many are brainwashed by the secular education system, the media, and compromising and/or shallow churches. That’s why we’ve produced a Bible curriculum for churches, VBS programs, homeschool curricula, and more. We also formulated an education division to educate children and young people at the attractions and produce a Bible curriculum for Christian schools from a truly biblical creationist-worldview perspective.

Research indicates that less than 6% of Christian schools teach a truly biblical worldview. Many use secular evolutionary textbooks. Our eldest daughter, Renee, had a burden to establish a Christian school (now called Answers Academy, which is under the Answers in Genesis umbrella) in the 2017/2018 school year with 18 students, not just to be a local school but one that could be a model school for the nation and other countries. This discipleship, biblical worldview academy has grown markedly and works in conjunction with AiG’s education division to produce biblical worldview curricula. The school also helps attract staff to our ministry as parents look for ways to disciple their kids.

During 2021 and 2022, AiG, as well as numerous other Christian organizations, started to be impacted by attacks from various companies in regard to technology deplatforming and refusal to sell products and/or services because of our stand on God’s Word. That’s another big story, but we recognized from a technology perspective that we had to bring a lot more things in-house, which requires more room for servers and other equipment. We also began networking with other Christian organizations suffering the same sorts of issues. It has increasingly become a major problem for us to deal with and takes a lot of expertise, time, and money.

In 2021, as the school was growing, we realized it would soon outgrow the facility we were renting at a local church. AiG designated 51 acres of land donated to us near the Creation Museum to develop an education facility. However, after consulting with architects, we realized it would take years to raise funds and develop. In our post-covid times, costs have skyrocketed, and with supply chain issues, it seemed to put such a development way out of reach.

In 2021–2022, more and more people started to realize the devastating effect secular education was having on the coming generations who were being indoctrinated in an anti-God worldview. Many started to look to homeschooling and Christian schooling. I talked to our AiG board of directors about the need to greatly enhance our education division to provide resources for parents and teachers to educate their children. Also, our Christian school really started to grow and desperately needed more space. Our daughter Renee engaged a commercial real estate agent to see if there were any buildings in the area we could rent for the school. We couldn’t find anything.

Now, some other background information—we had run out of room at the AiG offices at the Creation Museum. We built temporary offices in our rented space for warehouse/shipping operations and the design and fabrication studios. We do have county planning permission to build a large office building at the front of the Creation Museum, but post covid, it would cost tens of millions. Also at the Creation Museum, the café is too small for the number of guests who visit, but we have now run out of space inside to expand it. We were also trying to figure out how to provide a building for our HR and Learning and Development teams who train our staff and oversee our internship programs. We had a place for such a building on the Ark property, but again, how would we find the funds for this?

These were all matters we were praying about, for which we were trying to seek solutions.

Many times, as I drove on I-275 and saw the Toyota building, I would think, “Why can’t a Christian organization like AiG have such a building?” But then I would think, “No, it’s big secular companies that have buildings like this.”

Toward the end of 2021 and at the beginning of 2022, I saw a big sign on that building advertising space for lease. I often prayed, “Lord, wouldn’t it be fantastic if our Answers Academy could have a building or part of a building like this?” Every time I passed that building, I would think about the need for our school and offices, but I would brush it off, though sometimes I would pray for the Lord to provide something for us. It’s hard to describe, but the burden I had every time I saw that building intensified.

During 2021, our marketing agents, JDA, approached us since they also had a burden to see our Christian school not just grow but become a model school, provide some sort of licensed opportunity, produce curricula, help homeschoolers, and provide online education. They saw the uniqueness of what we do in teaching a truly biblical worldview and began creating a professional detailed strategic plan for us.

The potential for this school to be a leader in impacting Christian education was enormous!

In mid-2022, JDA invited a team of us to their offices so they could present the strategic plan. It was amazing. The potential for this school to be a leader in impacting Christian education was enormous! But the problem was we just didn’t have room to do any of this. We then discussed the need to find some sort of building to rent to expand the school and provide space to implement the strategic plan. JDA’s CEO said he had a great experience with a person at a major commercial real estate firm. I thought, “Well, why don’t I give him a link to this building I had been burdened about just to see if there’s anything possible there?”

The real estate agent looked at our local area but really couldn’t find anything suitable. He then contacted the current owners of what had previously been the Toyota building and arranged for us to look at it. A few in our leadership met there, and as we stood looking around, it suddenly changed our entire thinking about the future of AiG. This is a four-story, 200,000+ square foot building with a partial lower level. We believe right then God redirected our thinking in ways we did not even think possible. Two-thirds of the space consisted of the original Cincinnati Bell building and the other third was an add-on building.

We said, “The third Toyota added on could be used to house Answers Academy, and the other two-thirds could house our office staff. The building also had an auditorium for our Learning and Development division, a massive data center for our IT department, a medical center that would benefit the school and the ministry, full cafeteria, fitness center, rooms with library shelving, and so much more. This would enable us to move our offices out of the Creation Museum so we can expand the museum, including our café, into that space. This would save us the time of constructing a large office building at the Creation Museum, and we wouldn’t need an additional building at the Ark for our HR and Learning and Development teams. We also wouldn’t need to develop the 51 acres of land for the school. This will save us tens of millions of dollars for the future and enable to us to do in a short period of time what would normally take many years.” Our jaws dropped in amazement.

We were also able to obtain 36 acres along with this building, including 900 car parking places, acreage for athletic fields and a playground for the school, space to build a gym, preschool, and other classrooms, and space to build our warehouse and fabrication studios when we are able (so we can move out of our rented premises). This gives us a place to develop for the future.

This building had been “mothballed” for five years after Toyota relocated to Texas. It was actually going to be purchased by a Fortune 500 company, but that fell through because of covid. And now, post-covid, office buildings aren’t in great demand. All of this enabled us to obtain this building at a fraction of what it would cost to build such a facility. And we were able to arrange short-term financing from Christian sources.

Yes, we do need to do considerable renovation and upgrades, particularly for the school, but it’s all significantly less expensive than it would be to develop such a facility from scratch. Since it was purchased at a fraction of the cost to build the same facility today, it will likely save the ministry tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, in needed facility investments over the course of this decade alone. We’re thankful God has given us this opportunity to steward his money well.

We have big plans for future ministries and this building will help facilitate those worldwide opportunities for decades to come.

Many other miraculous events occurred through this process, including getting zoning permission for all the things we believe God would have us do in the future. Because, yes, we have big plans for future ministries and this building will help facilitate those worldwide opportunities for decades to come.

We realized that the provision of this building really will take us to levels of impact as a ministry much more quickly than we ever thought possible. As one of our supporters said, “God knows what is happening in the culture and is giving your ministry the opportunity to have an even greater impact in a much shorter time. He knows the urgency to get the message of God’s Word and the gospel to the world.”

Yes, I believe that is what God is doing. There is so much to do, but God has encouraged us. I pray this has encouraged you too. I look at the amazing work God is doing through AiG at a time when the world desperately needs it and believe all of this shows God’s special hand on this ministry.

I ask that you prayerfully consider making a generous gift of any size this month so we can take what God has entrusted us and use it in mighty ways for him. Thank you!

P.S. A gift sent to our core ministry today will be a blessing to enabling the many outreaches of AiG to impact millions of people for Christ this year. As the Lord leads, please also consider an added gift to complete the funding for the Jerusalem Model Building and Welcome Center at AnswersDonate.com.