Prayer hopefully takes you out of the realm of ritualistic man centered worship to communictating with a real God and having a personal relationship with God, it's just talking to God.
Those of us who engage in ritual worship (just as Jesus did, BTW) don't see it as man-centered, but God-centered.
Worship, by the very etymology of the word, demands ritual of some sort. The ritual serves to call us away from our self-centeredness into "sacred space" where we can become centered on God.
Worship comes from two Anglo-Saxon roots. The second,
ship, also means "shape." So right off the bat, we know that worship has a specific shape. It's a shape of events laid out in time. The first root is
werden, which means "to become." so, worship is a shape of events in which we become something other than we now are -- in which God creates with us. Hopefully, as we worship, God peels away the layers we've built up around ourselves to get at the core of our being -- which is the
pneuma, or Spirit. In symbiosis with the events that we plan and carry out, God works to create with us, as we work to open ourselves to creative energy.
The word
liturgy comes from
leiturgia, which is a compound word, comprised of two roots:
laos, meaning "people" and
ergon, meaning "work." Liturgy, therefore is the work of the people.
The liturgy and ritual is for our benefit, so that we can touch and see and hear and bring all of ourselves -- mind, spirit and body -- before God in worship and avail ourselves of what God would do with us.
I would contend that we don't so much communicate (speak
to) God, as we commune
with God -- that is, align ourselve with God's perfect purpose for us.
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