What is a 'bullseye' in evangelism?

‘I am the greatest archer in the land’ proclaimed the king. And no-one could deny it, for whenever he shot his arrow, a courtier would immediately draw a bullseye around the place where it landed. Loyal applause rippled out as the king pinned another medal on his chest.

Lest we end up like this foolish king, we should ask the question of our evangelism: What is bullseye? In other words, what are we aiming at? If we don’t get clarity on our aim, we will end up justifying any old missionary endeavour and expect a round of applause.

Here I want to share what I think is ‘bullseye’ – and it’s got nothing to do with how the hearer responds. The hearer’s response is not the job of the evangelist, we’re called to share the gospel. But as we do that, what are we aiming to communicate? It’s simple but infinitely profound: ‘Jesus is Lord.’ That’s bullseye.

Presenting Jesus as Lord

Let me increasingly put flesh on that bare-bones description. The evangelist is to boldly and Biblically present Jesus as Lord. When I say ‘Jesus’, I mean the One who hung on that cross for our sins and rose to life for our justification. To say it more fully (and I never get to say all this in evangelism, but I’m thinking it!): Jesus is the eternal Son, filled with the Spirit, of one Being with the Father, the Word through whom creation was made, who entered His world as the descendant of David and fulfilment of Israel’s hope, who lived our life, died our death and rose again to reign at the Father’s right hand. These are all the thoughts I’m holding in my mind when I say ‘Jesus’. Such descriptors might not come out of my mouth but all of them fill my heart and colour my words.

And when I say that this Jesus is ‘Lord’, I mean a few different things all at once. I mean that He is God. He is the very Word and Image and Representation of God (John 1:1; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3). I also mean that He is the true Ruler of this world, and He’s the true Master of each one of us. Jesus – this Jesus who came at Christmas, died on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday – He is Lord.

I think this is bullseye because this is what Paul says his gospel boils down to: ‘We preach Jesus Christ as Lord’ (2 Cor. 4:5). It is the Spirit’s distinctive proclamation (1 Cor. 12:3) and what all humanity will bow to (Phil. 2:11). It’s the truth we should set apart in our hearts if we’re to be prepared for evangelism (1 Pet. 3:15), and saving faith consists in you ‘[confessing] with your lips that Jesus is Lord and [believing] in your heart that God raised him from the dead.’ (Rom. 10:9)

Notice how ‘Jesus is Lord’ is right at the heart of saving faith in this verse. Notice also that a knowledge of gospel events is still vital. In this article I’m not wanting to leave out Christ’s death and resurrection – certainly the rest of Romans doesn’t! But I do want to re-emphasise the person of Christ as the heart of evangelism: ‘Him we proclaim’ (Col. 1:28). You can communicate an atonement theory that’s impeccably logical, even Biblical. But no-one is saved by understanding the mechanism of salvation. People are only saved by knowing the Saviour– and knowing Him as Lord.

And so here are the kinds of things I end up saying a lot in my evangelism, whether it’s personal or from a pulpit:

‘Twenty years ago, when I met Jesus in the Gospels I remember thinking, He’s It. He’s tops. He’s the best. He’s unimprovable. He’s… Lord!'

‘I never warmed to the idea of God, but my vision was completely transformed when I looked at Jesus in the Gospels…’

‘I thought to myself, ‘If God’s like Jesus, I’m in.’

‘I saw His towering personality and His stooping love and I thought, ‘Yes! If He’s not God, I don’t know who God is!’

‘I’ve never seen anything more divine than that man on a cross, bleeding for the world. What do you reckon?’

‘That’s what I love about Jesus…’

This is bullseye. If we manage to communicate something of the Lordship of Jesus we are saying something of cosmic and eternal significance. If we say a thousand other truths but do not communicate this, we have missed the heart and soul of all things: Jesus is Lord.

Read also: Six reasons to put Jesus at the heart of evangelism