Sunday morning, February 2nd, we will celebrate the service of Holy Communion using bread and grape juice. Maybe you have wondered why we use grape juice instead of wine. The answer to that question goes back over 150 years ago. It began in Vineland, New Jersey under the influence of a man named Thomas Welch. Dr. Welch was the son of a Methodist minister, a dentist by profession, and the communion steward at First 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 communion wine set him off on a binge. Mr. 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 the unfermented juice of the grapes 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 the other Methodist churches in the area, and in 1890 the product was labeled “Dr. Welch’s Grape Juice”. Several years later, the entire Methodist Church adopted grape juice as the beverage to be used at all Methodist services of Holy Communion. 

 

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