John Bisagno, longtime pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church, went to be with the Lord this weekend. He was known as one of the early leaders in America’s evangelical youth movement of the early 1970s. Before he became an influential evangelist and Baptist pastor, Bisagno worked as a trumpeter in a popular Dixieland band. Baptist Press gave this account of Bisagno’s testimony in a 2012 article on lectures he gave at New Orleans Baptist Seminary.
In Bisagno’s 30 years as pastor [at First Baptist Houston], the church saw tremendous growth, including some 15,000 baptisms. Since his retirement in 2000, he has been an author and sought-after speaker.
But before all that, Bisagno was a talented trumpeter and Dixieland jazz musician. Sixty years prior to his lectures at NOBTS, Bisagno was on tour with his Dixieland jazz band to, among other places, New Orleans’ own Roosevelt Hotel.
“You can’t learn to play Dixieland out of a book. It’s either in you or it’s not, born in your soul,” he said. “The last places I ever played were down on Bourbon Street in 1952, the Parisian Room, the Roosevelt Hotel, Keesler Air Base in Biloxi, Miss., Craig Air Base and officer’s club in Selma, Ala., and the statehouse in Jackson, Miss.”
After that tour, Bisagno’s band took some time off, which took him back home to Oklahoma. While there, a street preacher invited him to Oklahoma Baptists’ Falls Creek Conference Center for a youth rally. By the fourth night, Bisagno said, “God started getting at my heart.”
On the last night, the week’s preacher said, “I don’t care if just one comes tonight, but I want one that means business.”
“I was the first one out of 9,000 that night to walk down the aisle and get on my knees,” Bisagno recounted. “I want to tell you, for 60 years I’ve been following Jesus. It isn’t always easy.”
Bisagno put down his trumpet and took up preaching. Just a few years later he was a young preacher speaking at churches around Oklahoma. He said it was some seven years before he ever preached to a hundred people at one time.
One night, he was driving home after a revival meeting where only a couple people had responded to the Gospel and he’d received a $60 love offering. Driving home, his dilapidated car had a flat tire. After finally getting back on the road, Bisagno, discouraged from his lack of success, turned on the radio to hear an announcer say, “From the beautiful Parisian Room atop the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown New Orleans, La., the music of Tony Almerico and the Dixieland Allstars.”
“The devil said, ‘Come on back,'” Bisagno recounted.
He immediately turned the dial to hear, “From Minneapolis, Minn., Billy Graham and the Hour of Decision.” George Beverly Shea then began to sing, “I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold.”
“Jesus was saying, ‘Follow me,'” Bisagno said. “That struggle stayed with me for years and years and years.”
Men and women drop out of the ministry each year because of morals, money, conflict in the church, discouragement and disappointment, Bisagno said, exhorting the seminarians in New Orleans to stay committed to their calling.
“I plead with you to be that generation that preaches the Gospel, wins souls, changes hearts, changes the world, and saves this country while there’s still time.”
Read the rest here.