A Revival of Prayer

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 Youth for Christ and Campus Life on a public school campus. We didn’t really preach or teach revival. I don’t know how I missed it, but I did, until I met these kids. And now, it’s like we’re the revival generation and we’re praying for revival. We started to exchange books and have prayer meetings, and the books were all 150 or more years old—[among them] Charles Finney, D.L. Moody, Jonathan Edwards, and the Wesleys.

I felt God saying to go to more campuses. Well, that’s kind of the tricky part because no one was inviting me. So, I had to knock on doors, and most people were not that receptive and yet students were talking a new language: “We’re the revival generation; God’s calling us to revival; we’re praying for revival.” So I just started to pray with them, whoever called, and if they knew kids in another school, they’d call and then I’d go to their school. So I did go to about 20 or more colleges over the next year until this past October, November, from [U.C.] Berkeley to Southern California.

Kids from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, called me. They had gathered together after a coed had died on campus from alcohol poisoning. About a thousand or more kids showed up. Otherwise, I was invited to speak at some chapels on Christian school campuses. It was a mix of both state and Christian school campuses.

Were groups such as InterVarsity inviting you to the state schools?

No. Most groups I tried to contact are pretty busy. They’ve got their own agenda. But kids, if they heard about it from other kids, would invite me to come and just do a little prayer, talk, or share my story, or kind of give them “permission” to have revival. What I saw on Christian campuses was so much apathy and complacency and you know, for lack of better words, sin. The kind of stuff the world does.

The entire campus was kind of apathetic and complacent and not you know, not really on fire. And I would go to state school campuses where the Christian kids were scary on fire, you know, the kind like you kind of don’t want them to blow up? They are so excited about Jesus and they’re kind of like the old Jesus freak days. There was very little of that on Christian campuses. There’s always a little core on every campus that is praying for revival. I’ve been in ministry 30 years this summer. Only in the last two years of my Christian ministry life has the word, the talk, the hubbub been about revival from a core position of prayer. What’s marking this generation’s revival is a revival of prayer. So it’s not big meetings where there’s loud worship and the roof blows off. It’s great hours of prayer. That’s what they want, and that’s what they need. On Christian campuses, most of the time I didn’t speak in chapel. I just asked them if they would do a 24-hour prayer room. Whoever was in charge of it, and they’re not always in some leadership capacity, they’re praying kids. They’ve been to IHOP, International House of Prayer, for a month or for a weekend or for a retreat, and they are kind of spreading a call to prayer to their classmates.

IHOP got involved praying for every school campus I was on and from that moment everything went up a notch on the campuses, more confession, the Christian girls are telling me, “I was raped by a Christian boy.” I get one or two kids from every location who tell me pretty much a horror story. But there’s a lot more of those students there. I really think parents have a lot of humbling of themselves to do in front of this generation. I see the mess pretty much from divorce and suicide, and the kind of things that leave a child really a wreck. And they get to campus and they just really can’t think straight. We have a lot of wounded kids. So this revival in prayer is, I think, what’s bringing a wind of healing into their lives and an aspect of forgiveness of the people who have hurt them into their life—and then the freedom to go serve and go comfort others and be the revival generation.

How’s what you’re seeing the same as or different from revivals in places such as Wheaton or Asbury?

My call to these students and their hope is that this is a never-ending revival, that this is not a meeting, not a season, but that it’s a lifestyle of revival, that we become a holy people and start acting like it and living like it and for all the generations ahead of us that might be dead or dim, or lazy or apathetic and complacent, forget it. That’s not how the Christian life is to be lived. What kids say to me is they’re trembling, and they cry, and they say, “You have so much passion.” I say, “Well, look, I’ve been a Christian 30 years, I’m in revival, I’ve been in revival. When I met Jesus, I got into revival. So I don’t know where you’ve been but get on the bandwagon and let’s go.” You know, it’s really giving permission for kids to be fired up and in love and passionate about Jesus all day, every day for the rest of their lives. But that wouldn’t include adultery and all the things that they look around and see in the Christian community.

It’s been said that at least in some of these revivals on Christian college campuses that there’s almost a little peer pressure to participate in the revival. Have you seen any of that?

No, it’s almost the opposite. They are ridiculed if they take part. I’ve put my ear to the ground in every city. And there is so much drinking in the Christian colleges that if a kid doesn’t want to, they feel more pressure to drink. Now, I’m giving you my impression, and I’m speaking in generalities. I’m not saying everybody, all the time, everywhere [drinks], so don’t misunderstand me. But when you put your ear to the ground, it isn’t pretty, and it isn’t healthy, and the spiritual life is pretty anemic. I’ve gone to private schools, state schools, and Christian schools. What do the Christian schools tell me? “We can’t get anybody to sign up for the prayer rooms.” The state schools had somebody signed up for worship every two hours so that for 24 straight hours, they had a guitar player playing worship for anyone who came into their room to pray. At Colorado State University they created an abandoned building behind an alley, behind a bar, for their prayer room. On some [Christian] campuses, Christian kids who are trying to call their peers to prayer and to purity feel very alone.

How have Christian college administration and staff people responded?

Great! I was at Northwestern College the day Asbury had their little revival. I just got an e-mail from the vice president of advancement that 650 kids went through that prayer room. But at another Christian college, they couldn’t get two kids every hour to sign up.

I was at Oregon State University, and all 30 campus ministries came together, they only do this once a year. The guy who invited me said, “I’ve never invited anyone to speak to my all campus group, but I think you’re supposed to come and give this message.” I said, “I’ll come if you guys want to do a prayer room.” So I got up in front of these kids, and I said, “Here’s what I see: I see Christian leader boys who are stuck in pornography, I see Christian girls who have been abused. I see prayerlessness, I see pride, and I believe our intimacy with God is being stolen by impurity.” And I really went after the Christian leader boys with pornography.

At the end of my talk, a boy starts walking up to the stage, and I’m thinking, “What’s he doing? He’s going to mess me up.” He was the one all 30 campus ministries knew as a great Christian leader kid. The next thing I knew, he’s standing by me, and I’m like trying to shake him off like a puppy on my leg. So I finally say, “Um, do you want to say something?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Right now?” He said, “Yup.” And he looks right at everybody and says, “I am a Christian leader that Becky is talking about. I’ve been stuck in pornography since I’ve been 12 years old, and I am taking back my destiny from the devil right now, and I’m going to get out of this. And if you want to get out of this pornography thing with me, men, meet me tomorrow night at my hall at 7:00.”

The place fell, boys came forward and just laid on their faces. The worship band started, and it went on for an hour, and this happens really every place I go. They drop to their knees and cry out to God and ask him to forgive them. And I believe that we begin to see change on every one of those campuses.

Stan Guthrie blogs at stanguthrie.com.