The March meeting of the Methodist Council

The Methodist Council met on 30-31 March, for its last meetingbefore the annual Methodist Conference in July. As it always thecase for the last Council meeting before Conference, it addressed awide range and a large number of topics. The Council papers areonline here.

The main topic was the Team Focus process, which is reconfiguringthe Connexional Team in order to better serve the circuits anddistricts and to release resources to churches for innovative newmission. This subject has created a lot of discussion within theCouncil and the wider church, and the Council addressed it in threeseparate sessions in order to be confident in the proposals itsends on to the Conference.

The Revd Ken Howcroft, Coordinating Secretary for Conference andCommunication, said 'thanks to the hard work of the Council andeveryone else who has contributed to the process, the Team Focusproposals are now ready to be prepared for presentation to theConference. Some of the decisions have been difficult to make. Thedetails of others still need to be worked out and tested beforethey are finalised, but we are now confident that we have the rightstructure for the Team in order to encourage and liberate excitingwork in churches, circuits and districts.'

Other topics discussed include the future shape of the YouthConference, the best way to structure adult training and theleadership of the Church.