One of the great advantages of the internet is that so much information is available to us, which years ago might have been difficult to access. But this does depend on the quality of websites and sadly the World Methodist Council website is a disappointment. It desperately needs to be brought up to date and like the British Methodist Church (soon to be improved) has a single column format that restricts any creative use of space. But it is dull in terms of content as well as layout. The World Methodist Council page on the British Methodist Church website, which provides a basic introduction, and Wikipedia's page do not really supply more information.
Still, it's worth visiting the main site and if you hunt around you will get an impression of the range of its activities. It is particularly interesting to look at the member churches. It might seem odd on a blog committed to ecumenism to look at something entirely Methodist but what the WMC does is to remind us that all of our traditions are alliances of churches. There is a family of Methodist Churches around the world. They are autonomous churches that choose to acknowledge their relationship from a tradition that began with the Wesleys.
The use of new media was much more in evidence at the World Methodist Conference, which took place in early August, following a meeting of the World Methodist Council. (The latter saw the launch of the papers about Methodist Roman Catholic relations, I featured yesterday.) The conference papers are worth a read and give a better overview of the event than anything I can write here.
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