Why ancient liturgy beats spontaneous prayer

Should our prayers be set, or spontaneous? Tony Wilson suggests that liturgy should be used as a springboard for our own personal prayers. He explains why 

Discussing the relative merits of spontaneous and liturgical prayer with an evangelical friend, we reached a point of disagreement. She argued, with good reason, that prayers expressed in our own words come from the heart and more sincerely reflect our authentic thoughts and feelings. I’m not convinced.

Our post-modern culture has taught us to value self expression. Couple this with the power of mobile technology, and the result is that we are more likely to create content than consume what other people have created. Our social networks put us in transmit mode rather than incline us to listen attentively to what is being said. Instead of judiciously weighing different points of view, we tend to surround ourselves with people who express ideas we already agree with.

This group-think is prevalent at prayer meetings in churches too. When a group of Christians meet for a time of spontaneous prayer, we can easily find ourselves searching to pray for something that will meet the approval of everyone else in the room. We tend to express our prayerful desires in ways that cohere doctrinally with those around us rather than throw something challenging into the mix.