Making God’s Love Visible: Inside Findlay Church

Tucked behind a row of tenements in Maryhill, Glasgow, is a church that has been quietly making God’s love visible for a hundred and fifty-two years. This November, we get to gather there. So I sat down with the church's pastor, Peter, to hear the story.

It started in a kitchen

Findlay Church is named after its founder, David Jack Findlay. Yet David never meant to start a church. 

At sixteen, he went to a rally led by the evangelist D.L. Moody, who was holding meetings in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens. From that night, he felt a twofold call. The first was a deep heart for Maryhill and the extreme poverty he saw there. The second was that everything he did should be driven by his faith in Jesus Christ. 

David started reaching out relationally to people by holding “kitchen meetings” in Maryhill. He simply opened up tenement flats and invited neighbours in for food and a Bible study. 

People kept coming. Over time the kitchen meetings grew into a church with a real heart for its neighbours.

The church met in a few different buildings around the community. At one point they moved one street over, from Maryhill onto Great Western Road, which many Glasgow students will know well. The move changed everything: the people walking through the door were no longer the neighbours David had felt called to serve. His calling was Maryhill, and to reach Maryhill, the church had to be in Maryhill. 

A tent and a prayer 

In those days, tent meetings were a common part of evangelism across Glasgow. Findlay’s tent meeting involved a huge marquee, put up weekly from May to September for open-air gatherings. It stood on the very ground where the church sits now.

As the church met there, they began to pray that the land would be kept for the gospel for generations to come.

God answered. A builder bought the land and was putting up tenements at the front. He gifted the ground behind them, the exact patch where the tent had stood, to the church. 

Across the years, people from many different church backgrounds were drawn to Findlay, not only to make Jesus known, but to show God’s love in practical ways by meeting real, tangible needs.

That missional heartbeat reached far beyond Glasgow. David Findlay became close friends with Hudson Taylor, the famous missionary who founded the China Inland Mission. Many of the first missionaries of the China Inland Mission were sent out from Findlay Church.

Presence over programmes

I asked Peter what Findlay Church looks like today. A hundred and fifty-two years on, the mission hasn’t changed. Findlay was planted to make a difference in Maryhill, to change the daily lives of the people who live there, and to introduce them to Jesus.

Over the years, they’ve turned the church space into a hub for people facing loneliness, addiction, homelessness, and poor mental health. They don’t offer programmes. Instead, they offer a warm space, a listening ear, and holistic support. Because the relationship comes first, the people they send to rehab tend to stay the full ten months. “We have the joy of saving people’s lives here sometimes,” Peter told me.

The church’s tagline is making God’s love visible, and Peter is clear about what that means. “We don’t just want to preach it with words. What we preach on a Sunday, we live out throughout the week.”

For Peter, praying for God’s kingdom to come isn’t abstract. He wants to see people come to know Jesus, and he wants to see their lives transformed. He believes that as the kingdom comes in Maryhill, “homelessness will decrease, drug addiction will decrease,” and “many of the chains of poverty and injustice will start to be broken.”

However, he’s honest about the limits. “We can’t always make a difference nationally with everything that’s happening. But we can make a difference locally, to the person who sits in front of us and is struggling.”

Building trust

While Peter is based at the hub, he and the church team walk the streets of Maryhill because the people who are struggling most can’t always walk through the door. They go to the street corners where people naturally gather, aiming to be as comfortable there as they would be in the church. 

Peter emphasised that trust in this community isn’t given. It’s earned. “People test you to make sure: are you just a minister with your hat on, or do you actually understand what’s going on in their lives?”

Nineteen years of living and working in Maryhill has given Peter credibility. People see him on the corners and in the flats, and they know him as someone who helps others. 

As someone who grew up working class, I found this refreshing. People in Maryhill don’t wear masks. They’re direct, but they also hold back until they know who they’re dealing with. “I prefer that,” Peter told me. “If they can trust you then people will be directly honest with you, with whatever colourful language, because if you honestly know what’s happening with someone, that’s where you can help.”

Start by serving

I asked Peter what he’d say to anyone who wants to make a difference in their community. His answer was simple: serve.

“It is in serving and being the hands and feet of Jesus that we become discipled.” You can sit through as many services and Bible studies as you like, he told me, but it’s like university: “You’ll learn all the theory, but until you step into the workplace, that’s where you learn what this looks like in practice.”

He also takes comfort in how Jesus sent out his disciples, telling them to look for people of peace and homes of peace, places where the Spirit was already at work. Peter sees that in Maryhill too. Some people aren’t ready yet, and the team keeps the relationship going so they know where to come on the day they want help. For those who are ready, the team follows what the Spirit is already doing and helps them find the next step.

“As a church, we just follow his lead. But if we’re not out in the community, where the Spirit is at work, building those relationships, then we miss out on that opportunity both to be used, and also to be discipled and to grow in our faith.”

Peter’s words echo the heartbeat of Just Love. That’s why it feels right to be gathering here for our National Gathering about prayer! 

Come and pray boldly with us

Do you long to see God’s kingdom come on earth as in heaven?

National Gathering 2026 is Friday 20 – Saturday 21 November, across Adelaide Place Baptist Church and Findlay Church in Glasgow. We’re gathering to Pray Boldly: to cultivate a life of deep, honest prayer that acknowledges our dependence on God and fuels our desire for justice.

Expect worship and intercession, in-depth teaching, and rhythms of prayer that can sustain a lifelong pursuit of justice, alongside hundreds of others who are running in the same direction.

It’s open to every age, stage, and denomination. If you love Jesus and care about justice, this is for you.

Until then, the Just Love website has plenty of resources to help you follow Jesus in your pursuit of justice! 

Want to know more about Findlay? Listen to our sit-down interview!