Extemporaneous vs. Liturgical Prayer

While the meme contrasts the style of Evangelical prayer with the style of a Roman Catholic prayer, I think the same comparison can be drawn with extemporaneous prayer and liturgical prayer - prayers written hundreds or thousands of years ago and prayed throughout church history to this very day, connecting the modern Christian with his predecessors in the faith. We have these prayers embedded in the Liturgy and found in various prayer books, for example Starck's Prayer Book. While there is room for prayer from the heart, we know that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). Just as we look to the solid words of Scripture and its explication in the Lutheran Confessions, we can look to the solid prayers of Scripture and the saints who went before us. Words that have been tried and tested and found to be true, then and now.

"I didn't like it. Not at first. I do not think I am all that unusual in my opinion either. Starck's prayers are meat for the soul in an age accustomed to devotional cotton candy" - Rev. Will Weedon