New Science Center with a Biblical Worldview Coming to Ontario, Canada

Joe Owen, our Director of Worldwide Outreach, is helping Cántaro Institute launch this new Worldview Science Center. I encourage you to read all the details in the press release below from Christian Renewal Magazine and consider supporting this exciting project.

A quiet property in southern Ontario is becoming the setting for a much bigger story. What was once a boys’ military school is now being reimagined as Worldview Campus—a Christian ministry hub designed to serve families, churches, students, leaders, and the wider culture. At the heart of that vision is an ambitious new project: the Worldview Science Center.

The story begins with Dutch Canadian entrepreneur John Hultink, whose life has already included publishing, book distribution, and decades of investment in Christian work. His latest chapter centers on donating the amount needed for Cántaro Institute to purchase 171 acres near Wellandport, Ontario. The institutionally zoned property includes roughly 57,000 square feet of usable space spread across 10 serviced buildings, with administrative offices, classrooms, dorm rooms, a full-sized gymnasium, and a 250-seat chapel. Renovations are already underway, along with construction of a new book warehouse and retail store.

A Campus Built for More Than One Ministry

Hultink has never been known for thinking small. At 83, he is making a significant investment not simply in buildings, but in a long-term Christian institution. He readily acknowledges that the work requires capable people around him, and one of the key leaders is Steven Martins, director of the Cántaro Institute and manager of Worldview Campus.

“I don’t see my lifelong commitment to the Worldview Campus as a change of course, but as the culmination of what the Lord has been preparing me for.” —Steven Martins

For Martins, the campus is meant to make a Christian world-and-life view visible. Rather than functioning as a collection of disconnected programs, the goal is to build a shared institutional ecosystem in which distinct ministries can work side by side in principled cooperation.

Central to that vision is the Paideia Study Center, planned as the theological, philosophical, publishing, and worldview-formation hub of the campus. It is expected to include a specialized worldview library, classrooms and lecture halls, a media studio for podcasts and online education, publishing and research operations, and programs for mentoring, discipleship, and leadership development.

Other ministries are already part of the picture. Rose City Kids will serve children and families in at-risk neighborhoods across the Niagara region through Christ-centered mentorship, education, and care. Niagara Classical Academy will also be on site, bringing reformational philosophy into a classical Christian curriculum. And in partnership with Answers in Genesis in the United States, the campus is developing the Worldview Science Center and Planetarium.

From an Old Soccer Field to a Destination for Families

Today, one part of the property is still easy to overlook. It is an unkempt soccer field where students from the former military school once trained and competed. The grass is high. The weeds are flourishing. Nothing about it yet looks like a major destination.

But that is precisely what makes the vision so striking. Within the next several years, the expectation is that this field will become home to a new science center—one designed to draw families, school groups, churches, and visitors to the Niagara region for immersive learning rooted in a biblical worldview.

The proposed Worldview Science Center will include interactive exhibit areas, a planetarium and dome theatre, and access to the campus’s broader educational and recreational facilities. Plans for the campus also include a 500-seat auditorium for events, camps, retreats, conferences, and other gatherings.

The aim is not merely to add another attraction to the region. The center is being designed around a theological conviction: creation should move us toward the Creator.

“Through cutting-edge presentations and interactive exhibits, we want visitors not only to learn about the natural world but also to recognize the glory of the Creator behind it. Ultimately, our goal is to point people to our triune God whose glory is declared via creation (Ps. 19:1) and seen redemptively in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).” —Joe Owen

A Planetarium Designed to Awaken Wonder

The planetarium is still in the concept stage, but the possibilities are already taking shape. The goal is to use immersive technology to help visitors experience the scale, beauty, and order of the universe in a way that is both scientifically engaging and explicitly Christian.

Programs such as The Created Cosmos are envisioned as journeys through stars, nebulae, galaxies, and immense cosmic structures. Other presentations could place guests alongside an astronaut on a mission to space, showing how human beings can discover, understand, and apply knowledge about the world God has made.

“Our hope is that every visitor leaves with a greater sense of wonder, gratitude, and awe for both creation and its Creator.” —Joe Owen

That sense of wonder is intended to extend beyond the dome. The science center is envisioned as a world-class educational environment where scientific inquiry is explored through a distinctly Christian lens—one that connects the study of creation with questions of meaning, purpose, truth, and worship.

The “Crown Jewel” of a Larger Vision

Joe Owen, an author, educator, and international speaker, has come to Canada from Mexico on behalf of Answers in Genesis (AiG) to help [this group] establish and launch the Worldview Science Center. While continuing to serve as AiG’s Director of Worldwide Outreach, Joe is, for the time being, also heading up the development of Cántaro Institute’s Worldview Science Center at Worldview Campus. His work will focus on helping people understand the relationship between faith, culture, history, and science through the lens of a biblical worldview.

For Owen, the science center is not intended to compete with the other work happening across the property. It is meant to reinforce it.

“Worldview Campus is a place where the Christian worldview takes tangible form. The Worldview Science Center will not compete with the many initiatives already taking place across the campus; rather, it will complement them and serve as their crown jewel.” —Joe Owen

The larger vision is for a place where education and mercy meet, where Christian formation has institutional depth, and where the next generation is equipped to live faithfully under the lordship of Christ in every area of life. The science center will bring faith, science, education, and culture together within that broader mission.

A Story Just Beginning

For now, there are architectural drawings to develop, renovations to complete, funds to raise, exhibits to design, and countless details still ahead. But the direction is clear: a former military academy in rural Ontario is being given new life as a place of Christian education, ministry, and cultural engagement.

And where an overgrown field now sits, the hope is that future generations will one day walk into the Worldview Science Center, look outward at the wonders of creation, and be pointed upward to the Creator who made it all.

We praise the Lord for like-minded ministries that are sharing the truth of God’s Word and the gospel message around the world! Please be praying for this exciting initiative. And if you’d like to learn more about Cántaro Institute, stay up to date as construction progresses, or donate to this project, please visit their website.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.