Similarities and Differences in our Church Organization

While spending this time in England among British Methodism, I'm learning a lot about their leadership structure at the local church, the circuit and district levels. The British Methodist Church is a different entity than the United Methodist Church.
I have now attended a Church Council meeting and a meeting of "local preachers" on the circuit. The Church Council functions in similar ways as ours in giving oversight for the church's ministry. The way it carries out this function probably varies a bit from congregation to congregation and in that we would find some of the more concrete difference with UM Churches.
For example, the pastor or superitendent chairs the Church Council meetings and has a vote on the council, as well as other committees I think. In the UMC, the pastor has voice but no vote on any committee except the Lay Leadership Committee, one he/she chairs. This is the only committee the pastor chairs in the UMC. The chairs are all lay people.
The local preachers I mentioned earlier are lay persons who have gone through a quite rigorous 5 year program and a period of supervision to prepare them to preach in the churches of their circuit. The circuit I'm serving within has 8 churches, with three full time ordained ministers. So, these local preachers are used every month to preach at the services when the ordained pastor is elsewhere. These people are highly capable. One of the questions that arose in the meeting is the challenge of continuity for the churches. How do the individual congregations and especially new people know what to expect when coming to worship and how do they build a relationship with the preacher? That being said, the use of the lectionary is seen as a unifying element for worship and again, the local preachers are well-trained and well-utilized.
Anyway, I have shared a little about the American models of a local pastor and lay speaker with them. These local preachers are sort of in between these two in terms of responsibility and authority. We are trying to share some of our similarities and differences here so that this exchange can truly be an exchange - of ideas, of experiences etc. Woodville is also learning from Derek in the same way I know. I pray that all of this sharing will be seed planting that bears the fruit of new approaches for all our churches.