Words wear out after a while, especially religious words… When a prayer or a psalm or a passage from the Gospels is chanted, we hear the words again… We remember that they are not only meaning but music and mystery. … Of course, chanting wears out after a while too.
Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark
One of my children said that when people pray prayers together in a service they sound like robots. I suppose it could sound that way.
I like how Buechner refers to them as music and mystery.
They are polished rocks, made smooth and beautiful by time and use.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 
the chanted prayers are pretty route, but congregational singing isn’t. To my ears..
We always were told that singing was praying twice… so singing a prayer doubled its value!!
I was with a very large group of people one time and we were saying The Lord’s Prayer together. It isn’t unusual for me to say it with a fairly large group because we say it in church each week BUT in this instance I’m thinking about, we were a very large group in a big open room. I remember wondering if someone who wasn’t familiar with the Christian faith heard us, what would they think because it was sort of a chanting sound. During Lent, we actually sing a beautiful version of the Lord’s prayer and I love it.
I have to say that there was one time when I was with a large group and we gathered in a circle to say the Lord’s Prayer together. I don’t say this lightly, but we all felt something (the Holy Spirit?) like I have never felt anything before. If I had been a doubter, I would’ve become a believer at that moment. I think there’s great power in saying the words aloud in a group. But yes, I do wonder what an outsider would think.