Liturgies, Litanies & Prayers

I wrote a preface for an "ordinary time" liturgy which we call the Mt. Carmel Liturgy that expresses pretty well how I feel about worship. This is the opening paragraph:

Hymns, Songs, Psalms, Ritual, Scripture and Prayer: That is liturgy, or literally the “work of the people” of God. As Martin Luther said to a congregation which asked him how they should worship, he could and would give them something, but that it would be best if they would develop their own order of divine service. He held that the worst thing services could become was to make of them “laws, work and merit; and so depress the faith.” In fact, regarding his own German Mass and Order of Divine Service, he said, “on no account to make of it a compulsory law.” Also, in his preface to the German Mass Luther emphasized that the liturgy should be alive, vibrant with the Spirit and “above all” useful in the promotion of Scripture and education of its participants. “For the sake of [those participants] we must read, sing, preach, write and compose; and if it could in any wise help or promote their interests, I would have all the bells pealing, and all the organs playing, and everything making noise that could.”

(FN: The German Mass and Order of Divine Service, January, 1526 by Martin Luther From: Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation, B.J. Kidd, ed., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1911, p.193-202)