Emerging Africa

A photomarathon is a full day of taking photographs on particular topics. The emphasis is on fun and creativity, and anybody can participate - all you need is a digital camera.

On Nov 3rd, we'll meet at Bryanston Bible Church at 8:30am where we'll have a short introduction to the theme, "Heaven in Ordinary." Heaven can be thought of as an "out there" concept but we want to explore (through photographs) how heaven can break into the daily ordinariness of life in Jozi. There will be 12 topics (given out 4 at a time, at 9am, 1pm and 5pm) for the day and although you can shoot as many pics as you want under each topic, you can only submit a single entry - so at the end of the day you'll hand in 12 photographs.

The cost is R50 to enter and we'll exhibit the photos the week afterwards at Bryanston Bible Church. We'll also find some place to hang out together after all photos have been handed in.

The above is a description I posted on the "Heaven in Ordinary: A Photo Marathon" group on Facebook (apologies if you haven't succumbed yet!). Some of the inspiration is from the other 2 photo marathons run in SA so far and some of it is from a talk by Don Miller and John MacMurray called "Where photography and theology intersect.".

Photography takes pictures of the world, yet those pictures aren't the object they seek to capture - they're only a visual representation of it. A picture of a dog is not the dog, it is only a picture of the dog.

Theology is that which seeks to talk about G-d, but can never capture G-d (and if it could it would idolatry). So theology always seeks to point beyond itself towards a bigger Reality who cannot be reduced to words or descriptions, who thus describes Himself as, "I AM."

And so we put these two ideas together into a photo marathon where the participants look for the heaven in the ordinariness of a Saturday in Johannesburg. Listening to the whispers from the wings (mixed metaphors are fun!). Especially since it can be easy to only see the ugliness around us. When we are conditioned to that end, beauty becomes hidden...and friends encourage us to seek it out.

I'm really enjoying this idea from a missional perspective as it draws in people from all background and (un)beliefs to do something creative together and, perhaps in seeking a glimpse of heaven, glimpse G-d, who is always at work in the world around us. Who knows?

So if you have some time on Saturday (and are in Gauteng), why don't you join us? The idea isn't to spend all 12 hours stressing about which photos to take, but to rather live your Saturday normally...and look for heaven breaking through during the course of the day.