Last week I revisited my former home city of Canterbury.
I was there for the Archbishop’s installation, representing St Luke’s for Clergy Wellbeing. It was, in many ways, a joyful and hopeful moment for the Church. And yet, being there also stirred older memories of a previous installation, and of the quiet disappointment of being an outsider, on the doorstep but unable to attend.
At the time, I was a diocesan officer in Canterbury and learned, quietly, that not everyone who worked there was invited. Some were inside. Others, just as quietly, were not.
That memory returned as I arrived early this time. Sitting in a café near the Cathedral, waiting for security screening to open, I overheard someone being told:
“It’s a private service… you won’t be able to go in.” Stranger in the café.
In another café window, a poster invited passers‑by to watch the live stream.
None of this was surprising. All of it was understandable. And yet it was a reminder of how familiar the experience of exclusion can be even when it is procedural, unintended, or politely handled. Headcounts, guest lists, security cordons and live streams are part of modern institutional life. But they are never emotionally neutral in how they are experienced.
Sitting in that café, I reflected on how insider and outsider are not fixed identities. Our positions shift. As I prepared to enter the security cordon, I quite literally embodied that movement. We can move between these positions across a lifetime, and sometimes within a single day. You can assume you belong, only to discover, emotionally rather than theoretically, that you don’t. And that discovery often carries a cost: disappointment, loss of confidence, or a sense of being unseen.
That lens helped me reflect more deeply on what this installation represents.
For many, it marks a journey from the margins to the centre, from being overlooked to being entrusted, from standing outside to being asked to stand at the heart of the institution. Such journeys matter. Not because the centre is more virtuous, but because exclusion, however subtle, wounds.
What is often less visible is the emotional cost of crossing that threshold [i]. Becoming an insider does not erase the memory of having once been outside. In some cases, it sharpens awareness of those who still are. Leadership shaped by that journey may carry a particular attentiveness to vulnerability, scrutiny, and responsibility.
As Christians, we are shaped by a faith that speaks honestly about thresholds and doors. The invitation of God is wide and generous, extended without regard to status, history, or worth. And yet it is also an invitation that calls for response, a choosing to step through, to trust, to belong.
Perhaps the challenge for the Church is not whether there are doors, but how we hold them: whether our life together reflects the grace of the invitation, or mirrors the exclusions of our institutions.
And perhaps the challenge for each of us is to notice who is waiting on the threshold, and to attend to the emotional cost of crossing it.
[i]. If you want to reflect deeper on the emotional cost of such transitions, Nadia Bashir’s article, Qualitative Research with Pakistani Communities: The Implications and Emotional Impact of a Shifting Insider–Outsider Position (International Journal of Qualitative Methods) is an appropriately challenging read. Bashir’s reflections, especially on the ethics of research design and the need for regular, intentional supervision, struck me as relevant well beyond the research context. They offer a useful lens for anyone leading through change, where roles shift, identities are unsettled, and the emotional impact of crossing thresholds is often assumed rather than attended to.