with The Rev Kevin Logan, Vicar of Christ Church, Accrington.

THE storm rages about us. Some want to yell at God as if to wake him up: "Don't you care?" - just as the first disciples railed at Jesus sleeping in a rocking Galilean boat 2,000 years ago.

In our case, the maelstrom threatens to break up the Church on rocks of gay sex and a new Bishop of Reading. Believers of all shades, even of other faiths, look on anxiously. How we cope cannot help but affect them.

A minority of Anglicans call for the acceptance of loving, long-term same-sex relationships. Another minority (my minority) campaign against, saying that the basis for Christianity - the Bible - speaks lovingly and firmly for sex within marriage and abstinence outside.

The large majority in the middle - both in Church and State - swing between a dislike of gay practice and the more liberal 'live and let love'.

For the disciples in the original storm, the solution was recognising God in their midst. He, in Jesus, had the honoured place behind the helmsman at the rear of the boat, and the disciples' joyous escape inspired that trusty old chorus - 'With Jesus in your boat you can smile at the storm'.

Smiling is not the first reaction for today's disciples. A lot just want to cry. Our established Church may be tomorrow's destabilised shambles, splintered in pro and anti lobbies.

And not only the good old C of E. All denominations, and even other faiths, could founder on this issue.

As we try to steer a safe course, thank God he's right behind us - in the rocking boat.