While thousands of Southern Baptists were preparing to gather at the 2025 SBC Annual Meeting, a group NOBTS students and professors were already hard at work sharing the Gospel in the Dallas community.  

Preston Nix, professor of evangelism and evangelistic preaching, led a group of more than 30 faculty and students into local neighborhoods for door-to-door evangelism the week before the annual meeting took place. This effort was part of the SBC’s annual Crossover event, a convention-wide emphasis on evangelism in the annual meeting host city.

Taking place Monday through Friday (June 2-6), the group knocked on thousands of doors in order to promote the Saturday events of Crossover and have spiritual conversations.  

Participating students received class credit for Nix’s evangelism course. Many group members were distance learning students who had never met other NOBTS students in-person.  

In total, the group knocked on more than 2,000 doors, had more than 200 Gospel conversations and 12 people made decisions to follow Christ.  

Nix has been leading Crossover evangelism efforts at SBC annual meetings for years. 

“It’s been life-changing and ministry-changing for students,” Nix said. “Many students tell me it’s their favorite class.” 

The course is often referred to as “evangelism boot camp” by students because of its rapid, hands-on approach. Students hear a lecture from Nix in the morning and then spend the rest of the afternoon evangelizing in the local community.  

“Some of the students have never shared their faith personally like this,” Nix explained.  

“Many Christians have never seen someone come to faith in Christ through their personal witness and when they actually get to see it, they are so encouraged. 

“Through this experience they gain confidence, overcome their fear of sharing the Gospel with strangers and learn what boldness is. If you can do evangelism in this type of setting, you can do it in any setting.” 

Nix is the senior evangelism professor among all of the SBC seminaries and has attended almost every Crossover event since they began in 1989.  

He even helped propose the current format of Crossover, where students from the SBC seminaries go out in groups throughout the week to promote Saturday events held at local churches and have Gospel conversations.  

This year, 75 students from four of the SBC seminaries participated in Crossover, leading to a total of 406 Gospel conversations and 40 decisions for Christ during the week.  

Nearly 90 churches hosted events on Saturday (June 7), and thousands of participating volunteers brought the total number of salvations to more than 700. 

“We were able to encourage the churches and give them a little army to help them out with things they could not normally do on their own,” Nix said. 

One of the NOBTS students who participated in this year’s Crossover was Jason Dillard, a Master of Divinity student who works as coordinator for the NOBTS Caskey Center.  

“Crossover was really great experience for me,” Dillard said. “We were able to directly apply what we were learning during the class time. It felt almost like a summer camp, but a little bit deeper and further elevated. 

“There were several specific aspects and strategies of evangelism that I was able to learn during the week, and it was a great encouragement to have the chance to go out and practically use those things I learned.” 

Dillard noted the clear love Nix has for the task of evangelism.  

“This is the type of thing Dr. Nix loves to do,” Dillard said. “He clearly loves to share the Gospel, and he loves to get people involved in sharing the Gospel." 

Nix’s evangelism leadership extends beyond the week of Crossover.  

Every semester, Nix has taken students, faculty members and anyone else that would like to join into the New Orleans community to share the Gospel every single Thursday.  

Nix has partnered with several local churches to facilitate these efforts, most recently with Franklin Avenue Baptist Church. Each semester has yielded positive results of the efforts, with many coming to faith in Christ.  

Yet, over his years teaching and practicing evangelism, Nix has noticed many Southern Baptists begin to struggle in this area.  

“I tell the students I teach at Crossover that the five purposes of the Church are worship, evangelism, discipleship, ministry and fellowship,” Nix explained.  

“We (the SBC) used to be the strongest in the area of evangelism, and now it’s our weakest out of these areas. If we’re not reaching people for the Gospel, then the other four purposes of the Church cannot be fulfilled. 

“I ask them what is different about evangelism as a purpose of the Church versus the other four purposes, and the answer is that the other four can be done in-house. We need more people to disciple and fulfill the other purposes, so we have to get outside of our church walls and actually go do evangelism.” 

Nix said providing evangelism opportunities for students is an important part of training the next generation of Church leaders.  

“Our focus as a seminary is to fulfill God’s mission of reaching people with the Gospel, and we’re called to help equip those called to our churches,” he said.  

“Through these evangelism opportunities, we are helping students fulfill what God has called the Church to do and what we’re called to do as a seminary.   

 “We have the opportunity for our students to get a taste of what it is like to do this, so they can lead their churches to do it.”