I was parking the car yesterday to go into the bank, and I saw a street evangelist standing at the large intersection near the parking lot. (Photo posted below, cropped to show only his sign but not the evangelist himself, to protect his privacy.) I've seen him before; he stands with his sign on the walkway at my university many days, just outside my office window, and he also shows up each year across the street from our town's Pride Festival.
And I decided to go over and talk to him.
I'm feeling I need to reach across the divide and see if we can meet each other as human beings. We mostly discussed whether a list of sins is the best way to draw people to Christ (and we still disagreed on this at the end of the conversation). There was a bit of dueling Bible verses, a bit of grace vs repentance, and a bit of (the obvious, given the sign) dispute over whether gay people can be Christians.
We didn't come to any agreements, and I didn't realistically expect us to. But maybe I have a little better understanding of what drives him to stand by the road day after day with that sign. He feels he needs to warn people about God, and I can see that as a caring act. I don't know if he came to any understanding of me or my point of view.
I'm planning to greet him by name when I walk by him on campus this fall, ask how he's doing, maybe chat a little more, try to build some kind of relationship. The body of Christ, in all its diversity, is so hard, but it's our calling.