RELIGION / JOHN DART : Adventists Will Stay

NEWBURY PARK — A few years ago, Campus Crusade for Christ and Focus on the Family moved all or most of their independent ministries out of Southern California to less expensive locations, such as Orlando, Fla., and Colorado Springs, Colo.

Likewise, the domestic operations of World Vision will relocate from Monrovia to the Seattle-Tacoma area late this summer.

But the Adventist Media Center, the radio and television arm of the worldwide Seventh-day Adventist Church, recently spurned offers from seven other U.S. cities--including Orlando and Lincoln, Neb.--and decided to stay in the Conejo Valley.

The center, which produces such television programs as “It Is Written” and “Voice of Prophecy,” has a yearly budget of $20 million and employs 135 people, said Ron Lindsey, vice president for finance.

The center’s board of trustees decided that while other sites might offer lower initial costs of operation, there were many unknown risks to relocation, said Glenn Aufderhar, president of the Adventist Media Center.

“When we moved to Newbury Park in 1972, this was a low-cost area,” Aufderhar told the magazine. “The same thing could happen elsewhere if the transition were made.”