It was at a rally for youth workers that Christian author and speaker, Becky Tirabassi, first dedicated an hour a day to God.

Then about five years ago when she uncovered a contract written by the 1947 "Fellowship of the Burning Heart"—a group made up of Bill Bright, and several others, she took her prayer life one more step.

Tirabassi says she had known Bright but never knew about the contract he signed to commit to a disciplined devotional life of an hour a day, to holy living through self-discipline and self-denial, and to win someone to Christ every year.

"I offer myself in all sobriety to be expendable for Christ," the contract reads.

"This is obedience at a new level," Tirabassi says, "a life call." She wanted to answer it the same way Bright and others had.

"Their sold-out love for God and willingness to invite the Holy Spirit into every area of their lives enabled these four people to live above their weaknesses and beyond their limits," Tirabassi writes in her 2005 book, "The Burning Heart Contract."

She points out that Bright went on to found Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization now estimated to have led more than 50 million people to Christ around the world.

But she said what was most compelling about the commitment to prayer and holiness that Bright made was that he made it not as resistance to liberal culture but because "a deeply profound experience with God ignited a passion within these four Christians that produced burning hearts for him."

And Tirabassi says she believes other people are also compelled to follow that passion.

"I am absolutely convinced that hearts everywhere are longing to answer the call to deeper passion, purity, and purpose for God," she writes.

Challenging those hearts has become a part of her speaking across the country and she offers readers of "The Burning Heart Contract" a 21-day challenge in the form of a devotional geared toward writing a contract with God on pages provided near the end of the book.

Tirabassi says she has often sensed in her speaking engagements that people seemed to be waiting for someone to call them to be "sold out, set apart, and sent out." Sometimes her message is read or heard by Christians looking for a deeper relationship with God. Sometimes she speaks to Christian leaders who are like she was, looking for renewal. Sometimes she finds herself speaking to lost souls.

"I had a girl come up to me in St. Paul after about three hours of worship, speaking and sharing testimonies," Tirabassi says. "She said she was going to commit suicide the next day. All I could think of was when these people asked me to come … Jesus knew all along I had to be there this day because this girl had to hear this message because there was no more tomorrow."

Tirabassi's own story centers on a radical transformation when she accepted Christ as a young woman who was living wild. Once the novelty of her conversion wore off, however, she was left distant from God. Without the spiritual discipline of prayer, Bible study and holiness, she had no way draw near to God, again.

"Once I faced the truth about my prayer life, I was forced to agree with Leonard Ravenhill, who wrote, ‘Prayerlessness in the life of a believer is sin,'" Tirabassi writes.

Then she committed, like Martin Luther and John Wesley, to one hour of prayer and Bible study every day. It was a vow.

She was inspired by the words of Corrie ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor who once said, "Don't pray when you feel like it. Make an appointment with the King."

Tirabassi says her commitment to do so was simple yet life changing, especially as a spiritual leader. She says she began to be compelled to pray more rather than do more. She organized a system of both talking to God and listening to answers, which she outlines in her book.

For more than 20 years she has maintained the time. She says it is a time for her to confess her sins, to hear God's call to holiness, to receive specific life direction, to fuel her passion or God and to find courage to believe—to grow in faith.

"Your one hour of prayer is your intimacy with God," Tirabassi says. "You begin to live for him out of your own love for him. … It really becomes the ownership of your own relationship with God."

Tirabassi writes that before her vow she saw a glaring void on her calendar that translated into not making time for God.

After making the time, Tirabassi writes, "It was exhilarating to write down my thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams and specific requests. It was humbling to write out my confessions. But it was simply awesome to hear God respond!"