Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

Our Pastor

Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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Olive Branch Newsletter For May 2002

OUR CHURCH FAMILY HISTORY
The Story Of The Methodist Grape

Have you ever wondered why the United Methodist Church uses grape juice at Holy Communion instead of wine? This began more than a hundred years ago in Vineland, New Jersey, under the influences of a man named Thomas Welch. Dr. Welch was the son of a Methodist minister, a dentist by profession, and the communion steward at the First United Methodist Church. One Sunday the Welch family had a visitor in their home who accompanied them to Church. He was an alcoholic, and the taste of the communion wine set him off on a binge. Dr. Welch was greatly disturbed and was determined to seek a substitute for the alcoholic beverage. In September 1869, he and his family picked forty pounds of ripe grapes, pressed out the juice, then pasteurized and bottled it. They offered this unfermented juice of the grape to the minister for the communion service, and the congregation pronounced the unfermented wine a success. Dr. Welch then began selling the bottled grape juice to other churches in the area, and in 1890 the product was labeled Dr. Welch's Grape Juice. Today that phrase has a very familiar ring! Doing the right thing produces spiritual rewards, too!

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