The pastor stepped into the pulpit and announced, "I don't have a sermon today. I have a word from the Lord." We were supposed to be impressed; not a mere sermon, a message directly from God. He then proceeded to ramble for about half an hour or so. I remember thinking afterward that he hadn't said anything that qualified as a "word from the Lord." It didn't even rise to the level of a mediocre sermon.
It's a common assumption in many churches that when God speaks He always does so right at the moment without any preparation on our part, that the work of the Holy Spirit takes place spontaneously when we're speaking, not when we're studying and preparing in advance. C.T. Studd expressed this when he advised a co-worker on the mission field, "Don't go into the study to prepare a sermon -- that's nonsense. Go into your study to God and get so fiery that your tongue is like a burning coal and you have got to speak." Preparing sermons is foolishness; what we need to do is get ourselves into a state where we are able to speak out spontaneously under the inspiration of the Spirit.
Of course, there's no reason, in principle, why God can't lead one through the process of preparation and study; there's no reason to assume that God won't speak through a preacher who has diligently prepared a sermon. The pastor with a "word from the Lord" led his congregation to expect something special that morning, when in reality what he said was predictable and mundane, pretty much what one would expect from this particular preacher speaking off the top of his head. His claim to be speaking a word from the Lord struck me as presumptuous in the extreme.
The same assumption is applied to worship and prayer: the most spiritual worship is free and spontaneous, while liturgy is what happens when the life of the Church is in decline. It's an indication of spiritual deadness. I visited an elderly man in the hospital who'd suffered one setback after another; he said to me, "I don't even know what to pray anymore," so I suggested that the Psalms could give voice to the things he was feeling. He responded with disgust, "I thought we were supposed to pray from the heart." In his mind, prayer had to be the spontaneous utterance of the moment or something was wrong with it; it was unthinkable to take words written by someone else, even the words of Scripture, and offer them to God in prayer.
Thomas Howard tells of growing up with a deeply ingrained prejudice against liturgical prayer, then finding himself enriched by worshiping in an Anglican church while he was studying in England. As he was struggling to come to terms with this, he realized that even the extempore prayers he'd learned growing up were not as spontaneous as he'd assumed and were, in fact, "made up of stock phrases strung together" (Evangelical is Not Enough, p.48).
"Spontaneity is impossible sooner or later; there only remains for us to choose which set of phrases we will make our own. The prayers of the Church lead us into regions that, left to our own resources, we might never have imagined. Also in this connection, it is worthwhile remembering that prayer is as much a matter of our learning to pray what we ought to pray as it is expressing what we feel at given moments."
When Jesus instructs his disciples, in Mark 13:11, "when they bring you to trial and deliver you up, do not be anxious beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit," He's speaking about a very specific sort of situation. He's not saying "don't ever prepare in advance for anything." He's saying, "when you find yourselves in this situation, don't worry; the Spirit will give you wisdom." He's not promising the immediate, direct assistance of the Spirit every time they speak; He's promising that He will help His people when they're in over their heads and are called to speak in His name.
The idea that spontaneity in prayer, preaching and worship is the norm is based on the expectation of a direct and immediate influence of the Holy Spirit apart from any preparation and the assumption that the Spirit is quenched by the use of set forms, things prepared in advance (either by ourselves or someone in the past). Thomas Howard identifies this mindset with a second-century sectarian movement:
"No century since the first has been free from Montanism, the claim, that is, to be acting on the spur of the moment in direct response to direct and unmediated messages from the Holy Ghost. Today Montanism, more popularly known as spontaneity, is sovereign in immense reaches of both Protestantism and Catholicism" ("Contra Spontaneity," in Touchstone Journal, online).
Those who buy into this mistakenly believe they are following the example of the early Church. While there were indeed things that took place under the immediate influence of the Spirit, worship in the ancient Church had a very definite form and structure.
The Didache, parts of which were written during the apostolic period, quotes the Lord's Prayer and says, "Pray like this three times a day." It then goes on to give very explicit instructions on celebrating the Eucharist, including the prescribed prayers to use in the service. Justin, who was martyred in the mid second century, describes worship in which, after the offering of prayers
"There is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed with water; and he taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands.... And when the president has given thanks, and all the people have expressed their assent, those who are called by us deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and wine mixed with water over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who are absent they carry away a portion" ("First Apology," chapter 65).
Worship in the early Church had a definite order and form; it made use of prayers and responses prepared ahead of time, which were handed on to the next generations of believers.
So, in answer to the question, what is so spiritual about spontaneity? Nothing. Spontaneity, in itself, is of no importance. Overemphasizing it is actually harmful, leading to the presumption that we are speaking in God's name and worshiping in the Spirit, when in truth we are simply rattling off our own ideas and experiencing a purely natural exhilaration that doesn't rise above the level of what one experiences at a good concert. Worship and prayer are a response to God, which implies patient listening to His Word then being trained in the responses handed to us by His Church. Rather than the pressure to have a "worship experience," we enter and find the words there waiting for us. Whether we feel exhilarated or not, we offer worship to God in faith that He hears and is pleased. And as we continue doing this over a lifetime, we internalize this responsive language and are increasingly transformed into people who are ready to worship before God's throne.
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