Back in Dalton: life-size replica of Old Testament sanctuary

Reading the biblical account of the tabernacle in the wilderness may be the way some people learn about God’s plan for salvation, but the Dalton Seventh-day Adventist Church offers a more tangible path to understanding.

The Messiah’s Mansion, a traveling life-size replica of the Old Testament sanctuary, sets up free of charge today at 300 S. Tibbs Road in Dalton, Georgia.

The tabernacle enables visitors to get a concrete understanding of God’s plan for salvation and the role of Jesus Christ in God’s plan, according to the Christian faith.

“Let them make me a sanctuary that I might dwell among them,” recites Clayton Leinneweber, director of Messiah’s Mansion, from Exodus 25:8.

“The sanctuary that they built, that’s the one that we duplicated,” he says.

Even the furniture is the same size, based on as much detail as the Bible gives, Leinneweber says.

Leinneweber oversees the Messiah’s Mansion project with his wife, Carolyn.

They’ve been to 80 locations in the past seven years, according to the Messiah’s

Mansion website. It represents the sanctuary that God gave instructions to Moses to build in the wilderness.

“Everything is to scale and a copy of what it would have looked like to the children of Israel, to the best of our knowledge,” says the website.

“We had them in town five years ago in 2013, and we just saw thousands of people who came through and enjoyed it,” says the Rev. Chester Clark, pastor of the Dalton Seventh-day Adventist Church. “Although it’s a lot work and fairly expensive to bring them in, we thought it would be something that would benefit our community here, especially our faith community.”

It also visited Hamilton Community Church in Chattanooga in October of 2013.

Messiah’s Mansion will be at Dalton Seventh-day Adventist through Sunday, June 10. Free tours will be offered every 15 to 20 minutes from 1 to 7 p.m. daily. Tours last about 75 minutes.

“The tours are interesting,” says Clark “They’re fast-moving. They’re informative. And since this isn’t an opportunity that comes by very often, I would encourage people to take the chance to see the Messiah’s Mansion while it’s close to home.”

Contact Yolanda Putman at yputman@ timesfreepress.com or 423757-6431.

STAFF FILE PHOTO BY DAN HENRY In this 2013 file photo, workers assemble the Messiah’s Mansion, a full-scale model of the sanctuary built in the wilderness by Moses and the children of Israel more than 3,000 years ago.

PHOTOS FROM MESSIAH’S MANSION Among the exhibits on display are, above, the Ten Commandments and, at right, an Altar of Sacrifice.