Are you good at celebrating? Is it something you do often? What have been some of the biggest moments of celebration in your life? Is celebrating one of the first thoughts that come to mind when you think of living life for God, Christianity, or the Gospel? Or are you more likely to think of failure, guilt, or struggle? I find that it is often so easy to overlook reasons to celebrate and get stuck focused on things that rob our joy. Because of this, it is important to rehearse our reasons for celebrating, and our next new song does exactly that. The song is “Boldly I Approach (The Art of Celebration)” by Rend Collective and is the title track from one of my favorite worship albums “The Art of Celebration” by Rend Collective.
The album, as its title suggests, is all about learning how to celebrate, and Rend Collective made a great video explaining the story behind the album which I’m including below. I believe watching this will help you connect more with this song and instill more meaning to the line “the art of celebration.”
The lyrics of “Boldly I Approach” are rich with deep truth and borrow greatly from several traditional hymns. If you know some traditional hymns, try to figure out which hymns are echoed in the song. For bonus points, see if you can identify the hymn having the most borrowed lines or references. If it helps, when you play the song the associated video will show the lyrics. You can also visit the Worship Together link (WT) which will have all the lyrics displayed.
I’m excited to do this song in church and pray that, as we sing it, we would grow in trusting God’s grace for us in our weaknesses (Heb 4:15-16). I also pray it would help us learn the art of celebrating, following Paul’s teaching to “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil 4.4). Enjoy listening to the song and the awesome Irish accent of the narrator in the video about the album.
