April (Web-only) 2006

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Longtime author Becky Tirabassi (The Burning Heart Contract: The Call to Prayer, Purity and Purpose, Integrity, 2005), through her work as a campus speaker, has become involved in prayers for revival at Christian and secular colleges. CT senior associate editor Stan Guthrie spoke with her about it.

How did you get involved in student revival?

It got started in [the] Azusa [Pacific University] chapel in October of 2004. I thought I would do my normal chapel talk. I basically told my testimony, but then really called kids to holiness, and I'm not a holiness preacher. In fact, I'm not even a preacher. But it just kind of came out of me because my testimony was such a radical, dramatic transformation from drugs and alcohol and sex and swearing that I just looked at this crowd and said, "From what I see [in this] Christian collegiate community, it's drugs and sex and drinking and swearing, and I don't get where the two come together." And I, really, kind of fell apart. I got very emotional and then they fell apart and it was kind of a time of confession following that chapel.

I had not turned in my manuscript for The Burning Heart Contract, which is a book about what was happening in my life. It was a call to a burning heart of prayer, purity, and purpose. I stood in a chapel with all these kids and I felt God's Holy Spirit really just come over me and call them to holiness. And then from that point, the chaplain said to me, "You know, if you can come back and talk about prayer, that would be awesome." So I proceeded to go back to the campus 15 weeks in a row and meet with this small group of kids who were praying for revival the previous summer. I'm not from that type of denomination or church that ever held revivals. I was in ...