World Methodist Council

The World Methodist Council (WMC), founded in 1881, is a consultative body that represents churches within Methodism and facilitates cooperation among its member denominations. It comprises 81 denominations in 138 countries which together represent the majority of Methodists worldwide, along with united churches that include Methodist traditions. Altogether, its members make up the ninth-largest Christian communion (see list of Christian denominations by membership).

The WMC has stated, since 2018, that its member churches represent approximately 80 million people. In 2020, World Christian Database, the online version of the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Edinburgh University Press, reported that the World Methodist Council had 70,226,000 members. However, according to statistics released by the WMC itself in 2014, the sum of the statistics of the member denominations themselves, as well as several independent sources, the number of Methodists worldwide is close to 40 - 51 million people.

Therefore, the WMC is the ninth largest global Christian communion, behind the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Anglican Communion, World Communion of Reformed Churches, World Assemblies of God Fellowship, Lutheran World Federation and World Baptist Alliance (see list of denominations by membership).

Affiliated organizations are the World Fellowship of Methodist and Uniting Churches, the Oxford-Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, the World Methodist Historical Society, World Council of Confederation of Methodist Youth, the World Council of Methodist Men, World Methodist Council of Teens, the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women.