What better place to enjoy the fellowship of other community members that on the beautiful, natural landscape of a golf course? This past weekend members of several different denominations joined to tee off and enjoy each others' company and participate in a little friendly competition at the Interdenominational Church Golf Tournament.

The event, held at Gobbler Hollow Golf Course, was made up of 30 golfers from about ten churches of seven different denominations.

The overall winners were representatives of the First Presbyterian Church who scored nine under. Members of the team, Steve Norman, Ben Norman, Jeff Swann and Chris Crawford, earned a $200 donation from Fred's Dollar Store that will go into the church's general funding. The First Baptist Church and the Call to Life Ministries were tied for second in the tournament with a score of five under par.

But, one of the event coordinators, Dave Jordan, said that the tournament was more about fellowship and giving participants an opportunity to meet with their neighbors.

"We had a great time and everything went well. Everyone seemed to have had a good time, which was what it was intended for. We played a fun round of golf and enjoyed the fellowship. This wasn't about winning, but about getting to know each other better," Jordan said.

The idea for the Interdenominational Golf Tournament began when members of the First Baptist Church wanted to get a tournament going. They had sponsored a tournament in the past, but it had ended when the organizer moved away.

"We wanted to get another tournament going and in the process of discussing it we decided that we wanted to make it interdenominational and invite all the churches to form teams and participate. We have an interdenominational breakfast and we would talk about it during that time. Everyone thought it was a good idea so we decided to try it," Jordan said.

Jordan said that

Guthrie Brooks, Dick Harmon, Jim Johnson and Chris Crawford all played key

roles in making the event a success.

Organizers plan to host the event on a regular basis.

"Right now we plan to have another tournament in August. We hope to make this a quarterly event, if not monthly. We want to see this event grow. We want to invite as many churches to participate as possible. We would even like to see individuals who are not members of a church come out and join us. Perhaps after meeting some of the people at the tournament they will decide to join one," he said.

Besides golf, the participants also had lunch together before ending their day.

Jordan said he expects the next tournament to be even bigger and better.

"We learned a lot over the past weekend and we will do a better job next time.

It was a great success, but I think we can do even better," he said.