 In the British Methodist Church and Irish Methodist Church, the closest equivalent to a diocese is the 'circuit'.Each local church belongs to a circuit, and the circuit is overseen by a superintendent minister who has pastoral charge of all the circuit churches (though in practice he or she delegates such charge to other presbyters who each care for a section of the circuit and chair the local church meetings as deputies of the superintendent).This echoes the practice of the early church where the bishop was supported by a bench of presbyters.