The Barber with a Bible

Allan’s experience of God at work - at work!

Allan is a 65 year-old Scotsman whose life has been marked by transformation — not just in the barber’s chair, but deep in the heart.

When Allan was just six, his father passed away. “My mum brought us all up single-handedly,” he recalls. “It was tough.” One of his brothers ended up in prison for beating up Allan’s best friend — an event that left Allan deeply bitter.

He struggled at school and left without being able to read or write. But one of his brothers showed him how to cut hair, and he immediately loved it.

When he was 19, Allan’s brother became a Christian. Allan wanted nothing to do with it. “I was still bitter and unforgiving. I dismissed it entirely.” But other family members started turning to Jesus too — first a sister, then another brother, then some family friends.

“I kept bumping into Christians,” Allan says. One day, his motorbike broke down, and a Christian friend of his brother stopped to help. She offered to pray. Allan refused. She prayed anyway — and the bike started.

Curiosity got the better of him. He looked up a church in the Yellow Pages and found one near the Barrowlands in Glasgow. Sitting at the back, he just wanted to ask God if He was real. But when the pastor gave an invitation to come forward, Allan felt himself rise to his feet.

“That’s when I was born again. I felt an overwhelming power of love fill me. And in that moment, I knew I could forgive my brother.”

From that day, he was all in. He taught himself to read — so he could read the Bible — and knew that he had to tell others about Jesus.

Ministry in the barber’s chair

Allan and his wife Debbie now run a barber shop together in Somerset, and it’s become a place of ministry. Before they open each day, they pray for the clients who’ll walk through the door — that they’ll be ready to hear the Gospel, and that Allan will be ready to share it.

“I always ask people to tell me something good and something bad that’s happened this week,” he explains. “It opens the door. I listen, and then I wait for the Holy Spirit.”

The stories that follow are not just touching — they’re life-changing.

One man came in shortly after losing his wife. Allan offered to pray, but the client replied, “I’m not a believer.” Allan prayed anyway: “I asked God to comfort his heart.”

A month later, the man returned and said he had felt an incredible peace. He had been turning to alcohol, and his family feared for him — but something had changed. Allan needed to practice a sermon for a friend’s wedding, so he asked this man to listen to it.

Allan used a visual illustration — a red piece of paper folded into corners for every sin, then crumpled into a ball. “Try flattening it out,” he said. “You can’t. That’s what sin does. But Jesus gives us a clean sheet — white as snow.” Right there in the barber’s chair, the man handed over the red paper, took the white one, and gave his life to Jesus.

“He cried on my shoulder and said, ‘This is amazing. You’ve filled me with hope.’”

“We’ve got Jesus”

There was a traveller who’d lost family members and admitted he was often depressed. Allan shared his testimony, gave him a Bible, and pointed him to verses about anxiety and hope. “He couldn’t leave halfway — I’d only cut half his hair!” Allan laughs. By the end of the cut, the man had taken not just one free Bible, but two — one for his wife — and asked about churches in the area.

And when a stranger, working illegally behind the shop next door, heard the laughter and joy coming from Allan’s shop, he came in and asked, “What have you got that I don’t?”

“We’ve got Jesus,” Allan replied. He ended up taking the man through the Alpha Express course during lunch breaks. At the end, he gave his life to Jesus and left the illegal job.

“Be bold. Be sensitive. Be ready.”

Allan’s encouragement to other Christians is simple: don’t wait for the perfect environment. Ask God to open your eyes to the opportunities around you — even in the ordinary moments at work.

“Be bold,” he says. “Don’t worry about what people think. These are real people with real souls. Be serious. We’re talking about eternity here. Be sensitive. Ask God what that person needs and wait for the moment.”

One of Allan’s regulars was miserable every time he came in. Allan would rush the haircut just to get it over with. But one day, the Holy Spirit said: “Now’s the time.” So Allan slowed down, shared the Gospel — and the man responded. “He had never heard about Jesus. His heart was totally changed.”

The leading of the Holy Spirit is essential in Allan’s everyday evangelism. “We need to know when to speak and when to wait. When it’s the right time to speak, the ministry of reconciliation rises in your heart and you just have to tell them. And if people are not ready, tell them a wee bit each time, or befriend them, sing with them, laugh with them, cry with them. Then, when it’s time, they’ll know you care.”