{"id":9579,"date":"2001-12-23T19:03:22","date_gmt":"2001-12-24T00:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/?p=9579"},"modified":"2011-07-12T19:04:20","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T00:04:20","slug":"1903","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2001\/12\/23\/1903\/","title":{"rendered":"Golfing Can Be a Spiritual Driver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EASTON, CT (December 23, 2001)\u00a0 &#8211; A group of Covenant men from a local congregation began making annual golf trips to the southern states as a way to get to know each other better. <!--more--><\/p>\n<div>The idea has blossomed into something far bigger &#8211; next spring 80 people are expected to play in what is now called &#8220;Golf and Grow: MB 2002.&#8221; The men&#8217;s sixth annual golf event and spiritual retreat will be held at the Sea Trail Plantation and Golf Resort in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, from March 6-10.<\/p>\n<div>Donn Engebretson, executive vice president of the Evangelical Covenant Church, will be a guest speaker for the event. He previously served as pastor of The Covenant Church of Easton. Rob Mitchell, a businessman from Greensboro, North Carolina, and a child who grew up at Covenant Children&#8217;s Home in Princeton, Illinois, will also share his testimony.<\/p>\n<div>The cost for the retreat is $490 and players will receive carts and three rounds of golf\u00a0 (at three different courses), along with villa accommodations and a buffet breakfast for four days. Devotional times will be available for participants, according to Paul Veerman, event founder and coordinator.<\/p>\n<div>Veerman, a member of The Covenant Church of Easton, started the event in 1997 with 15 men making the trip. The number doubled a year later and has grown by at least 10 each year &#8211; 60 people participated in last year&#8217;s event.<\/p>\n<div>&#8220;The thing about golf is that it allows you to play and to build relationships,&#8221; said Veerman, director of development for The Children&#8217;s Home in Cromwell, Connecticut, a ministry sponsored by the East Coast Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. &#8220;We had wonderful times in the evenings and now we have an outside speaker come in and we do devotionals in the mornings. It&#8217;s a wonderful mix of people. You have people in construction with people working in the financial district in New York City. It&#8217;s been a neat ministry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>Veerman tells the story of a Connecticut ophthalmologist who experienced a spiritual renewal at the golf event three years ago. He began to attend The Covenant Church of Easton and eventually made connections with a Covenant missionary in Ecuador.\u00a0 Within six months, the ophthalmologist was taking a three-month sabbatical from his practice and had moved his family to Quito, Ecuador, to help a medical mission work in that city. The Easton congregation later sent a mission team to help them build a free medical clinic there.<\/p>\n<div>For more information on &#8220;Golf and Grow,&#8221; contact Veerman by telephone at 860-632-3517 or By email at pveerman@childrenshome-ct.org.<\/p>\n<div>A group of women from The Covenant Church of Easton have coordinated a counterpart to &#8220;Golf and Grow.&#8221; The inaugural Women&#8217;s Rest and Renew Spa Retreat will be held at the Hawk Inn and Mountain Resort in Plymouth, Vermont, April 12-14.<\/p>\n<div>Kendra Smiley, a professional Christian speaker and author and a past Illinois Mother of the Year honoree, will lead five sessions during the retreat. The retreat leader, Crista Forstrom, can be reached by telephone at 203-268-0555 or by email at ccfor@aol.com. Information on the speaker can be found at www.kendrasmiley.com.<\/div>\n<div><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\"> <\/span><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>Copyright \u00a9 2011 The Evangelical Covenant Church.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=9579&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EASTON, CT (December 23, 2001)\u00a0 &#8211; A group of Covenant men from a local congregation began making annual golf trips to the southern states as a way to get to know each other better. Report This Post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Golfing Can Be a Spiritual Driver - Covenant Newswire Archives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/newswire\/2001\/12\/23\/1903\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Golfing Can Be a Spiritual Driver - Covenant Newswire Archives\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EASTON, CT (December 23, 2001)\u00a0 &#8211; A group of Covenant men from a local congregation began making annual golf trips to the southern states as a way to get to know each other better. 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