During the week before the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting, a group of NOBTS students and faculty collaborated with other seminaries and local churches to share the Gospel during the convention’s Crossover event in Orlando, Fla.  

Designed as an annual convention-wide evangelism effort in the SBC Annual Meeting host city, this year’s Crossover event took place Monday through Friday (June 1-5) and groups of students went into the local community to promote upcoming Saturday events held at local churches and have spiritual conversations.  

Preston Nix, professor of evangelism and evangelistic preaching, led a group of 15 NOBTS students into local neighborhoods for door-to-door evangelism. By participating in Crossover, students also received class credit for Nix’s evangelism course.  

In total, the group knocked on 1,366 doors, had 161 Gospel conversations and 28 people made professions of faith.  

“Wherever we've been for Crossover through the years, the Gospel is the same message wherever we go,” Nix said. 

Nix has been leading the Crossover efforts since the event became available for course credit in 2009 when the convention met in Louisville, Ky. 

He explained that Christians often have misconceptions about evangelism.  

“Some people are scared to death of door-to-door evangelism,” Nix said. “They think lost people are going to be mean, ugly and turn you away. 

“But for the most part, if you have a smile, approach people kindly, tell them who you are, who you're with and what you're doing, most people will talk with you.” 

Each day during Crossover began with students listening to an evangelism class lecture from Nix and other professors before going to practice what they’ve heard about during their door-to-door conversations. 

Some students even had the opportunity to go with Jeff Farmer (professor of church ministry and evangelism and associate director of the Caskey Center) into Walt Disney World to pass out water bottles and pray with Disney cast members. 

Across three of the SBC seminaries, more than 60 students participated in Crossover. These students led to a total of 544 Gospel conversations and 46 decisions for Christ took place during their encounters.   

Nix explained the importance of seminary participation in Crossover by saying, “students learn through training in this type of environment. They're getting the academic teaching part in the morning, and then they're applying it every afternoon by going out and sharing.” 

Throughout the entire week, more than 500 SBC churches were involved with many hosting Saturday events. These churches helped facilitate nearly 20,000 Gospel conversations in total, and more than 1,000 professions of faith were reported.     

“Crossover represents what we're about as a convention,” Nix said. “Here's what we're supposed to be about as a denomination, sharing the Gospel of Jesus.” 

Looking ahead to Crossover 2027 in Indianapolis, Nix has already begun praying. 

“One of the things I pray for is that hearts will be open to the Gospel in the communities we’ll go to.”