What Do You Mean You Got Saved?: A Humorous, yet Serious Look at the Doctrine of Salvation

By Robert Hogan

Do you ever wonder if people know the meaning of the words they speak? When you hear someone say they saw a bad ride, do they mean they saw a broken-down vehicle? Maybe the roller coaster at the amusement park wasnt operational. If you say your alarm is going off, is it making some audible alert to wake you, or is it having a temper tantrum? How do I really know what you mean? Many factors go into determining the meaning of words and phrases communicated to the listener. Knowing this, when I hear someone say they got saved, if I dont know their understanding of the term, I have to wonder what they mean. Here I try to explore what people mean when they use this common phrase heard in the Baptist churches of the American South. It is a serious question with eternal consequences: What do you mean you got saved?

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490832326

Robert Hogan

Robert became a follower of Christ at a young age. Growing up in church, he often found himself the leader of impromptu Bible studies. In adulthood, he was frequently the marriage, child-rearing, relational and biblical doctrine counselor with coworkers and friends. He accepted the truth of God’s calling upon his life, knowing that God always equips those He calls. When asked in 2001 to become a church planter in the Tennessee Baptist Convention, the journey into the pastorate began. Bob has been a bivocational pastor of the church he planted for thirteen years. He has been married to the love of his life, Teketa, for thirty-two years. He resides in eastern Tennessee. They have two grown sons, Andrew and Ethan. He has a B Min degree from the Southern Baptist School for Biblical Studies.

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Chapter 1

If you have spent any time in the South and more than a few minutes in a Baptist church service, you have very likely had someone ask either directly or just in general, if you have ever been saved. For this section of the book, when you read the word, saved, make the quotation mark hand signal. You know the signal. You raise your hands to each side of your head and extend your first and second fingers like claws and wiggle then in that annoying sign that we use to denote quotation marks. It gives the word more impact when you do that.

The preacher may have asked if you would like to be saved. Don’t forget the hand signal. The question may be, as I have already indicated, have you been saved?

People in Baptist churches, at least here in the South, will stand up during the service and tell about when they got saved and how much it meant to them and how it changed their life to be saved. They will request prayer for someone they love who is not saved, or give a report about someone who just got saved.

For those who did not grow up in a Baptist church and may not know how it works, when someone other than the preacher stands and tells about how Jesus has changed their life or tells about their family member or friend, it’s called, testifying. It’s a common occurrence in most Baptist churches, especially in rural areas. It is not as common in urban and suburban churches I have found. They seem to be OK with it in sharing sessions in their small group time, but typically not in the main worship service. It is my opinion that urbanites and suburbanites have more religious inhibitions than their country cousins.

I wonder at times, and this is just how my mind works, if they know what they mean by being saved and could really tell someone, especially one who may not have a background in church, just what they’re talking about.

What would happen if I was sitting in that service and they stood up and testified as to how Jesus had saved them; and after they sat down, I stood and said, Brother, What do you mean you got saved?

Would they look at me with a deer in the headlights stare? Would they ask me to leave? Would they look at me and say, Well, aah, it’s like, aah, well, you know. Would they say that if I was saved I would know what they meant? I really don’t know what would happen. Maybe someday I will attend another church and do that very thing.

First of all, you might like to know a little more about me, because, after all, you don’t know me from Adam’s housecat and have no idea if I know what I’m talking about. All you know is that it looks as though I can’t keep a steady job. I am over fifty and the longest stint I have ever held a public job has been six years. That was my enlistment in the Navy. Don’t write me off as a vagrant. I just have this knack for changing jobs a lot. I have been with one job, part-time for over twelve years now. More on that later.

I have moved around some. I have had residency in six different states; a couple of them more than one time each. Three states were due to the military. I have had a valid driver’s license from Tennessee, California, Alabama and North Carolina. Not all at the same time. After my armed services my moving from state to state was due to job changes.

I was brought up, as we say in the South, in church. I have been told that my first time to church was on the day I turned five days of age. I don’t have any memory of that event, but I will take Mom’s and Dad’s word for it. I was born on Tuesday and my mother was still in the hospital on Wednesday or I would have been taken to church on Wednesday Evening for Bible Study and Prayer Meeting.

I could write a lot about Wednesday Evening Prayer Meeting and Bible Study, but we won’t delve into that, here. I would mention that I have intentionally capitalized the words, Evening, Study, Prayer and Meeting because those times were as important in the tradition of the church as Sunday School and Preaching. You have to capitalize those words the same as you do a proper noun.

That brings me to another thought. When I was growing up in church, we had Sunday School and Preaching. We did not have Worship. Churches have worship now. We had that time between Sunday School and Preaching when the choir and anyone else who could carry a tune would sing. We called it, oddly enough, The Song Service.

The song service was the time when those who had missed Sunday School could slip in and sit near the back and the preacher wouldn’t see them come in late. It was also used for slipping out the back if you didn’t want to stay for preaching.

This trick didn’t work if the preacher sat in the big chair up on the stage. Our church had those big chairs and the preacher kept a watchful eye from his perch. I always wanted to sit in those when I was a kid but was not allowed to do so. Those were assigned to the preacher and the visiting preacher.

Some churches didn’t have them and the preacher sat on the front row with his back to the doors. Of course, he had agents who watched the doors; ushers. Ushers didn’t assist late-comers in finding seats. They just waited for the cue to receive the offering. Actually, what was said was, Take up the offering.

After hearing it for many years, I thought nothing of it, but now that I think about it, it sounded rather demanding. You almost expect the usher to waggle the plate in front of you until you put in at least a twenty. I don’t know if the church you attended, took up offering or if they received it. It’s just a matter of what we became accustomed to