{"id":37515,"date":"2021-04-16T11:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/meet-me-in-middle-i-dare-you\/"},"modified":"2021-04-16T11:05:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T19:06:34","slug":"meet-me-in-middle-i-dare-you","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/meet-me-in-middle-i-dare-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Me in the Middle, I Dare You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rumors have been circulating that Mathew McConaughey might be considering a run for governor of Texas in 2022, and perhaps a higher office after that. In a recent interview in <em>Men&#39;s Journal<\/em>, Jesse Will cornered the Hollywood star on the topic. McConaughey, resisted confirming or denying his thoughts on the matter. But when pressed to give a hypothetical campaign slogan, he shared that his favorite suggestion has been, &quot;Make America All Right, All Right, All Right, Again.&quot; Then he paused and said, &quot;But for me . ..It&rsquo;s &lsquo;Meet Me in the Middle&mdash;I Dare You.&#39;&quot; He then explained:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>When facing any crisis, I&rsquo;ve found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, then respond. You can&rsquo;t have unity without confrontation. And to have confrontation, you have to at least validate the other&rsquo;s position. We don&rsquo;t even do that. So, I&rsquo;d say, I&rsquo;ll meet you in the middle. I dare you. It&rsquo;s a challenge, a radical move. You come this way, I&rsquo;ll come your way. That&rsquo;s how democracy works.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>In other words, to explain to another human why they are wrong (if in fact it is them and not us in error), we must listen to them. We must understand where they are coming from? Why do they make the choices they do? You must meet them in the middle.<\/p>\n<p>\n\n<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3572,3653,3666,3667,3668,3669,3671,3672,3688,3785,4087,4130,4380,4616,4660,5213,5254],"tax_ctp_topics":[384,393,395],"class_list":["post-37515","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-choice","tax_ctp_tags-compromise","tax_ctp_tags-conflict","tax_ctp_tags-conflict-in-church","tax_ctp_tags-conflict-management","tax_ctp_tags-conflict-resolution","tax_ctp_tags-confrontation","tax_ctp_tags-confusion","tax_ctp_tags-conversation","tax_ctp_tags-disagreements","tax_ctp_tags-government","tax_ctp_tags-hear","tax_ctp_tags-listening","tax_ctp_tags-peacemakers","tax_ctp_tags-politics","tax_ctp_tags-unity","tax_ctp_tags-voting"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Meet Me in the Middle, I Dare You - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/meet-me-in-middle-i-dare-you\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Me in the Middle, I Dare You - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rumors have been circulating that Mathew McConaughey might be considering a run for governor of Texas in 2022, and perhaps a higher office after that. In a recent interview in Men&#039;s Journal, Jesse Will cornered the Hollywood star on the topic. McConaughey, resisted confirming or denying his thoughts on the matter. 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