At the beginning of this year, I had a dream that a friend of mine was delivering a baby. My friend was an old friend and a man, Edward. Two pastors were helping him. But instead of being beside him coaching him. They were on top of him. One Pastor was laying on Edward’s feet the other was laying on top of him long ways. Edward shoved them both off and the baby came quickly.
I woke up from the dream and the first word that came to me was alignment. I think the dream is about alignment. The new move of God will require us to do things differently than in the past. Perhaps the ways of the past will hinder the process of birthing the new move of God.
Alignment is like a birth canal that is unobstructed. Childbirth is natural and normal. God designed us to give birth but you can’t give birth if people are on top of you.
Edward represents the old guard. Earlier Edward was wearing pants under a dress. In the dream, it was perfectly normal for him to be wearing a dress. His wife told him in a tender voice, “No honey, you have to take the pants off if you are going to wear a dress.” And I think of the phrase, who wears the pants in the family? It’s a metaphor for control. We can’t be in control of the something new God is birthing. Perhaps that is the first thing we must accept: we are not in control. This will be hard especially for leaders who think their role is to be in control. Perhaps leadership in the new move will be more like mid-wife. We stand beside people—not over them—as they birth new things.
The message in my dream is that you can’t hang on to the old and embrace the new at the same time. You must let go of the old. We don’t have to stay on top of the new move of God or stay in control because that is the role of leadership in the past. If leaders can remove themselves from being on top, the new move will come. Flow. Natural.
Belinda Perez McDanel 
Belinda, your dream is both accurate and prophetic. Leadership in the church has long been polluted and hindered by worldly thinking. Jesus spoke clearly, forcefully and continually about the difference between earthly and Kingdom leadership. And yet, right up until the end, the disciples were arguing about who would be first! It takes a powerful and humbling revelation, and a continual walk in the Spirit, to comprehend truly spiritual, Kingdom leadership.
The Scripture is clear, but we ignore it. Jesus couldn’t have said it more plainly: “Do NOT give to each other titles, such as ‘leader’ or ‘teacher’ or ‘father’. You have One. Always keep this in mind – you are all just brothers. And the ‘leader’ is to be the servant.” (Matt 23:8-11)
And yet we have whole denominations that call their leaders “Father so-and-so”, or “Pastor so-and-so” (our contemporary leader-title). We do not understand the heavy weight that comes with the title, wrongly applied, both to the leader and the led. Expectations are set up, and unspiritual dependencies, which become co-dependencies. The titled “leader” carries the weight of “being in charge”, and the led have first the relief, and then the resentment of having a mere mortal in some measure of control over their lives. Basically, attention is shifted off of our Father, and onto Man. The result is always the same: pain, disappointment, limitation and division.
It is a large topic, too large for a simple blog response, but eminently crucial if the Church is to come into the experience of true Headship of the Body. Your dream is accurate, and revelatory.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your thorough comment. I wonder what it looks like to have Jesus as the head and believers as brothers and sisters. I imagine it would be some kind of interdependent or co-laboring relationship; not a hierarchy but perhaps a circle. I dream of a time when this is a reality.
I feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that the dream is prophetic because I don’t see myself as prophetic. I simply see it as God talking to me through my dream. I love it when he does. I don’t know much except what he shows me. What is new to me is to share with with a wider circle of people.
LikeLike