What a statement!

Reminds me that I need to take the track loader from my shop to my house and push up those old pecan stumps so I can quit weed eating around them.

 

Never heard this euphemism. Maybe it refers to clearing stuff out of the way so the problem is more visible?

 

"Mowing around the stumps" is a reference to pastoring a church where people are immovable on needed change. Those are the stumps. So the pastor works around them and let's them be in order not to upset the apple cart.

 

I was told it from a different perspective. Problems in a church are like stumps. You put a stick of dynamite in some and blow them up. The problem is that you can cause a lot of damage.
Some stumps need to be dug out, but it is an awful lot of work.
Other stumps are so big and strong that you just mow - or the way I heard it was plow - around it until it rots.
My pastor friend who told me about this said that wisdom is knowing how you deal with each stump wisely.

 

Rather than being a stump a true believer would quietly leave a local church.

 

I left a Baptist church because I sensed that the pastor had liberal leanings, moving my membership to another Baptist church.

After a number of years, that pastor became a member of the pastoral staff of a local Presbyterian church. He is still well respected by many members of his former Baptist congregation.

I have reflected on my decision often and am disappointed that, as far as I know, on one else showed concern about his liberal theology.