So what is The Wild Olive Tree…?
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A Social Enterprise
At The Wild Olive Tree we want to make a difference and so we have partnered with Glasgow City Mission and Bethany Christian Trust to create training placements to help people who want to develop skills as a way into work.
All profits from The Wild Olive Tree are shared between Glasgow City Mission and Bethany Christian Trust, to support their ongoing work with some of Glasgow’s most vulnerable people.
We also have a ‘gifted soup/coffee’ scheme – you can purchase an extra coffee or bowl of soup which we will then offer for free to people who are unable to pay for them. And to say thanks, we have a little loyalty scheme with this initiative – for every five soups or coffees you gift we’ll give you a free one back! At the end of every six months, we’ll convert any unredeemed soups and coffees into our emergency fund, which we use to help those who are in need.
A Quality Cafe
But what about the food? We pride ourselves on our range of tasty and nutritious soups, scones and cakes. Each day three or four different soups, five different scones and three cakes are made fresh on the premises. In the summer we also offer a salad option.
We serve speciality origin coffee from Dear Green Coffee, a roastery based in Glasgow city centre, as well as a range of flavoured teas and cold drinks. We also cater for dietary needs – there is always a vegetarian soup on offer, and a small range of gluten-free products.
An Ethical Trader
Because we want you to feel good about your visit to The Wild Olive Tree, we make sure that whatever we serve is doing good for other people. Much of our stock is sourced from Glasgow-based Greencity, an ethical supplier of fair-trade goods. Our bread comes from Freedom Bakery, an initiative based in Low Moss prison, which provides skills training to help prisoners find employment on release.
A Place of Sanctuary
The Wild Olive Tree is only a small part of St George’s Tron Church of Scotland. The café is located in the church sanctuary, where a worshipping community gathers three times each week for worship as follows:
• Sunday at 12.30 pm: Café Church service
• Sunday at 5.00 pm: SGT@FIVE
• Wednesday 1.15 pm: Midweek service
We hope that while you are here, you may enjoy some time in the sanctuary area for peaceful reflection, reading or prayer. Feel free to have a look around and linger at the occasional ‘worship stations’ which invite you to reflect on something of the Christian message. Or chat to Iain Campbell, our ‘artist-in-residence’ who is here regularly, working on a series of contemporary paintings inspired from the Gospel of Luke re-imagined within a Glasgow context. ‘Our Last Supper’, which is already on display in the sanctuary, is a contemporary re-interpretation of Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ for which Iain used some of the guests of Glasgow City Mission as models.
And ‘The Wild Olive Tree’…?
In the Old Testament story of Noah, the olive branch is a symbol of peace, marking the sign of a fresh beginning.
But the name of the café is also drawn from two other places in the Bible.
In Romans chapter 11 verse 17, in the Good News translation of the Bible, it says:
“17Some of the branches of the cultivated olive tree have been broken off, and a branch of a wild olive tree has been joined to it. You Gentiles are like that wild olive tree, and now you share the strong spiritual life of the Jews.”
Christians are ‘grafted’ into the family of God’s people through their faith in Jesus Christ, thus the image of the wild olive tree reminds us that we depend on God who invites us to be connected to Him through Jesus.
Secondly, in Nehemiah 8, wild olive trees played a part in celebrations which followed as God’s people rediscovered their relationship with Him following a period of exile in a foreign country, where their relationship with the living God had fallen away.
So the wild olive tree is a symbol of connection and reconnection to God.
It is our hope and our prayer that you will find connection or reconnection to God in this place. If you would like to speak to someone about questions of faith, please ask one of the café staff, who will see if someone in the church team is available to chat.
Otherwise you might like to come along to one of the services at St George’s Tron, the times of which are listed above.
At The Wild Olive Tree we want to make a difference and so we have partnered with Glasgow City Mission and Bethany Christian Trust to create training placements to help people who want to develop skills as a way into work.
All profits from The Wild Olive Tree are shared between Glasgow City Mission and Bethany Christian Trust, to support their ongoing work with some of Glasgow’s most vulnerable people.
We also have a ‘gifted soup/coffee’ scheme – you can purchase an extra coffee or bowl of soup which we will then offer for free to people who are unable to pay for them. And to say thanks, we have a little loyalty scheme with this initiative – for every five soups or coffees you gift we’ll give you a free one back! At the end of every six months, we’ll convert any unredeemed soups and coffees into our emergency fund, which we use to help those who are in need.
A Quality Cafe
But what about the food? We pride ourselves on our range of tasty and nutritious soups, scones and cakes. Each day three or four different soups, five different scones and three cakes are made fresh on the premises. In the summer we also offer a salad option.
We serve speciality origin coffee from Dear Green Coffee, a roastery based in Glasgow city centre, as well as a range of flavoured teas and cold drinks. We also cater for dietary needs – there is always a vegetarian soup on offer, and a small range of gluten-free products.
An Ethical Trader
Because we want you to feel good about your visit to The Wild Olive Tree, we make sure that whatever we serve is doing good for other people. Much of our stock is sourced from Glasgow-based Greencity, an ethical supplier of fair-trade goods. Our bread comes from Freedom Bakery, an initiative based in Low Moss prison, which provides skills training to help prisoners find employment on release.
A Place of Sanctuary
The Wild Olive Tree is only a small part of St George’s Tron Church of Scotland. The café is located in the church sanctuary, where a worshipping community gathers three times each week for worship as follows:
• Sunday at 12.30 pm: Café Church service
• Sunday at 5.00 pm: SGT@FIVE
• Wednesday 1.15 pm: Midweek service
We hope that while you are here, you may enjoy some time in the sanctuary area for peaceful reflection, reading or prayer. Feel free to have a look around and linger at the occasional ‘worship stations’ which invite you to reflect on something of the Christian message. Or chat to Iain Campbell, our ‘artist-in-residence’ who is here regularly, working on a series of contemporary paintings inspired from the Gospel of Luke re-imagined within a Glasgow context. ‘Our Last Supper’, which is already on display in the sanctuary, is a contemporary re-interpretation of Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’ for which Iain used some of the guests of Glasgow City Mission as models.
And ‘The Wild Olive Tree’…?
In the Old Testament story of Noah, the olive branch is a symbol of peace, marking the sign of a fresh beginning.
But the name of the café is also drawn from two other places in the Bible.
In Romans chapter 11 verse 17, in the Good News translation of the Bible, it says:
“17Some of the branches of the cultivated olive tree have been broken off, and a branch of a wild olive tree has been joined to it. You Gentiles are like that wild olive tree, and now you share the strong spiritual life of the Jews.”
Christians are ‘grafted’ into the family of God’s people through their faith in Jesus Christ, thus the image of the wild olive tree reminds us that we depend on God who invites us to be connected to Him through Jesus.
Secondly, in Nehemiah 8, wild olive trees played a part in celebrations which followed as God’s people rediscovered their relationship with Him following a period of exile in a foreign country, where their relationship with the living God had fallen away.
So the wild olive tree is a symbol of connection and reconnection to God.
It is our hope and our prayer that you will find connection or reconnection to God in this place. If you would like to speak to someone about questions of faith, please ask one of the café staff, who will see if someone in the church team is available to chat.
Otherwise you might like to come along to one of the services at St George’s Tron, the times of which are listed above.