Glasgow, Scotland – August 2026

This morning I was on my way to church when I heard that Sauchiehall Street had been closed off. Three men and a woman were taken to hospital after a stabbing in the early hours. Just the day before, two fellows were caught on video urinating on the tents of homeless people and then turning on the volunteers who tried to help. One of them has already been charged.

I looked up stabbings in Glasgow and found they are happening almost every week. I wouldn’t want my wife walking those streets alone, and I’m not sure I would either. Something is deeply wrong in the city.

The Heart of the Problem

The Bible doesn’t leave us guessing about this. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” And Paul says the same thing in Romans 3: “There is none righteous, no, not one… Their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known.”

Knife crime is not first a police problem or a housing problem. It is a heart problem! When a man can treat another person’s only shelter like a toilet, or pull a blade on a busy street, we are seeing the old nature that the Word of God has always described.

Poverty, social media, and the pressures of a changing city can feed the fire, but they don’t start it; the spark is already in the human heart.

How Glasgow Fought Back Before

About twenty years ago Glasgow was known as the murder capital of Europe. The Lord raised up some men who refused to accept that it had to stay that way.

Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan and Karyn McCluskey started the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit. They looked at what had worked in America and brought those ideas home.

They used focused deterrence ~ bringing gang members in and telling them the violence had to stop, while at the same time offering real help.

What they did was, they treated violence like a disease that could be interrupted, and they put local police officers right into the schools so the kids had someone who knew them and could confidently speak truth into their lives before the knives came out.

Those simple, consistent efforts brought the numbers down in a remarkable way. It showed that violence is not inevitable when people are willing to get involved and stay involved.

A Spiritual Parallel

That story reminds me of Nicky Cruz. A hard young gang leader in New York whose life was turned upside down by a young preacher named David Wilkerson. Nicky later wrote Run Baby Run. David Wilkerson, and later Carter Conlon, never stopped believing that even the toughest young men were not beyond the reach of Jesus Christ.

The same Jesus who stopped Nicky Cruz is still able to stop the ones walking the streets of Glasgow today.

Practical tools have their place ~ Relationships in schools have their place ~Clear consequences have their place.

But without the uncompromised gospel that changes the heart, we are only treating symptoms.

What Needs to Happen Now

The old gains are under pressure again. Young people are carrying knives once more. Social media is pouring fuel on the fire. Services are stretched. The city is feeling the strain of rapid change. None of this can be ignored.

What is needed is a return to the things that worked, officers in the schools, early intervention, real consequences for those who carry weapons, and genuine pathways out of that life.

And alongside all of that, the church must step into the gap the way David Wilkerson did, not just with programmes, but with the gospel, with mentoring, and with practical love for the hardest young men and the most vulnerable.

The Bible does not give us a neat political plan. It gives us a clear diagnosis and a perfect cure. The heart is the problem. Jesus Christ is the only lasting answer.

Until this city recovers the courage both to restrain evil and to offer the gospel of grace, the streets will keep telling the same dark story. But history—and more importantly, the Word of God, show us that it does not have to stay this way.

Violence is preventable. Hearts can be made new.

Lord, have mercy on Glasgow. Raise up a new generation of men and women who will walk into the darkness with both truth and hope.

I am praying for this city and for those who are already on the streets. I currently attend a church, though I am still seeking the Lord’s clear direction about a church plant.

If there is any way I can help, whether in prayer, practical support, or simply standing with those who are already reaching the lost and the broken, I am willing.

The need is great, and the harvest is still the Lord’s.