The World Methodist Council – Reflections from the Secretary of the Conference

I was speaking to a young Methodist recently who asked how many Methodists there are in the world. She was surprised when I told her that the answer is about 70 million; her experience of being part of a small church in the UK meant that she had no idea that she is part of a large, global family. She was equally interested to discover that I was about to travel to meet a representative group of that large, global family at the World Methodist Council (WMC) in El Salvador.

According to the WMC’s website, the purpose of the Council is to provide “a global table for all churches in our family to come to while respecting the autonomy of individual organizations”. The meeting in San Salvador was that global table in three ways.

We met around tables in discussion. We did some necessary business, we thought about the future direction of the Council, and we were privileged to receive some rich theological thinking about the theme of the gathering – “the Kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”.

Amongst many profound moments, it was illuminating to hear about justice in the light of a liberation theologian’s reading of John’s Gospel, peace from the perspective of violence-torn Colombia, and joy from the perspective of indigenous peoples in the Pacific.

We met around tables to eat. The President said in her opening remarks that the important work of the Council is not always in the business sessions but in the mealtimes and in the coffee breaks. In those moments, acquaintances made two years ago were renewed, new friendships with people from very different parts of the world were forged, and representatives of member Churches were able to have honest conversations about difficult questions more easily than can be done electronically.

We met around tables to worship. The Council’s devotions were led by a Brazilian liturgist who currently serves in the USA and a talented group of musicians, and combined the vibrancy of Latin American music with prayers and hymns familiar in Britain and the meditative chants of Taizé.

Members of the Council were also able to worship in local Methodist churches and to pray at the shrine of El Salvador’s martyr-archbishop, Oscar Romero (pictured). The WMC had come to a table laid in Central America and been fed spiritually by its hosts.

In a way, that embodies the role of the Council – to think about what it means to be Methodist both in a global context and in a particular locality. The Council ended with the Eucharist and disbanded looking forward to gathering around a table laid in the Philippines, in 2029.