013: Exploring Liminality and Communitas with the Tampa Underground

What if deep belonging doesn’t come from comfort — but from shared risk?

In this episode of the 100Movements Podcast, Brian Johnson is joined by Stacey Gaskins and Tomy Wilkerson from the Tampa Underground to explore liminality and communitas — two essential (and often misunderstood) elements of movement DNA (mDNA).

These aren’t abstract concepts or made-up words. They’re sociological realities that explain why movements form tight bonds, sustain sacrifice, and multiply faith in challenging contexts. This conversation grounds these ideas in lived stories from microchurch life, mission, suffering, and shared obedience.

What Are Liminality & Communitas?

Liminality

Liminality refers to threshold moments — seasons of risk, uncertainty, transition, or disorientation. These are the spaces where:

• Old identities no longer fit

• Outcomes aren’t guaranteed

• Dependence on God becomes unavoidable

Mission itself is inherently liminal because it requires crossing boundaries, entering uncertainty, and embracing vulnerability.

Communitas

Communitas is what forms on the other side of liminality.
It’s deeper than friendship and stronger than affinity — a bond forged through:

• Shared risk

• Shared suffering

• Shared obedience

Communitas produces a kind of family marked by loyalty, trust, and resilience.

Why This Matters for Movement

Movements don’t form through comfort, programs, or information transfer. They form when:

• People enter risk together

• Mission disorients normal patterns

• Faith is practiced, not consumed

Liminality is the catalyst.
Communitas is the result.

When churches avoid liminal spaces, they may preserve stability — but they lose movement.

How Leaders Can Cultivate This (Without Forcing It)

Rather than trying to “engineer” liminality, the Tampa Underground focuses on ecosystem design, asking:

• What environments invite faith-filled risk?

• Where are people stepping beyond control and comfort?

• How can we normalize experimentation, testimony, and reflection?

Liminal experiences can happen:

• In a one-on-one conversation around a fire

• Through shared mission in hard places

• During corporate practices of prayer, listening, and storytelling

• On trips, immersions, or local missional engagement

The key is not scripting outcomes — but making space for obedience.

Key Takeaway

If the church wants deep community without deep risk, it will be disappointed.

But when people follow Jesus together into uncertainty, communitas forms naturally — and movements emerge.

Next Steps

• Explore the Movement DNA Strengths Assessment

• Learn from the Tampa Underground

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