ST. LOUIS • The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, gathers for just two days a year to refresh and make recommendations on the best course ahead to save souls.

Only this time, the thousands of Southern Baptists gathering in downtown St. Louis this week are coming off a series of wake-up calls.

Baptisms — their gold standard — are the lowest in decades.

Hundreds of foreign missionaries have been called home, only to see the implications of poor evangelism in the United States. If only the loving message of Christ had been shared, they wish, maybe there would be less societal decay and violence.

Indeed, mass shootings have been the bookends to the past two conventions. Last year, the convention ended with the massacre at a Charleston, S.C., prayer service that left nine African-Americans dead. This year, the convention started after 49 people were killed in Orlando, Fla., at a gay nightclub.

“Since all human beings are made in the image of God, this attack against gay Americans in Orlando is an attack on each of us,” the Rev. Ronnie Floyd told thousands of people Tuesday at America’s Center. “As followers of Jesus Christ, we stand against any form of bigotry, hatred or violence against our nation.”

In his final address as convention president, Floyd, of Arkansas, spoke at length about race in an attempt to rally political candidates and church leaders to face hard truths about the country and individual communities.

“We are known more for being the ‘Divided States of America’ than for being the United States of America,” he said, adding: “Regardless of the color of one’s skin, God has put his divine imprint on each one of us. Where has this conversation been in our national political races for the highest office of the land? The silence of both parties has been deafening. This cannot be. Racism is a major sin and stronghold in America.”

He also leveled the message directly at the Southern Baptist Convention, largely made up of rural congregations of less than 100 people in the South.

“We are not black churches,” he said. “We are not white churches. We are not Latino churches. We are not Asian churches. We are the church of Jesus Christ.”

That call for racial unity was followed by passage of a resolution that calls on Christians to stop displaying the Confederate battle flag.

Earlier, a diverse mix of faith leaders hosted a panel discussion on race.

Kenny Petty, pastor of the Gate Church in University City, spoke about Ferguson.

He said the shooting of Michael Brown exposed a “historical, societal infection,” like the incidents in Charleston and Florida. “It exposed a wound, and that wound opened up and it reeked,” he said. “We had a pretty serious situation in our streets … there has been some healing, but there is a long way to go.”

Bridges and flags

The Rev. Marshall Blalock, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Charleston, S.C., spoke about the shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church there last summer, when a young white man walked in on a Wednesday night and killed nine people. Blalock urged the audience to not “wait for this to happen.”

“Are we willing to build a bridge?” he asked. “Are you willing to start this in your church? And are you willing to start it now?”

Gregg Matte, senior pastor at Houston’s First Baptist Church, said he insisted on having a diverse groups of pastors for its five campuses.

”We want our leadership to look like the city of Houston,” he said.

Larry Shuler, 67, listened to the president’s address and subsequent panel discussion from near the back row of the cavernous convention hall. An associate pastor, he recalled working in East Texas.

“They didn’t talk about racism, they just practiced it,” he said. “If you don’t talk about it, it’s not going to change. Throwing rocks doesn’t help a bit, it only increases anger.”

The Confederate flag resolution was first proposed by an African-American pastor, the Rev. Dwight McKissic. The proposal presented was less strongly worded than the original. It added a paragraph that the flag serves for some not as a symbol of racism but as a memorial to loved ones who died in the Civil War.

It also called on Christians to “consider prayerfully whether to limit, or even more so, discontinue” the flag’s display.

But Tuesday, the convention approved a motion to remove the added paragraph and urge Christians to discontinue the flag’s use.

A call to evangelism

The denomination, based in Nashville, Tenn., was founded in a split with northern Baptists over slavery. It has a history of complicity with Jim Crow laws and is still 80 percent to 90 percent white. But with 15.3 million members, that translates to at least 1.5 million nonwhite members.

And while membership at white churches is decreasing, it is on the rise at churches identified as predominantly “non-Anglo.”

At a pastor’s conference leading up to the convention, which runs through Wednesday, Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research, an analytical arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, challenged pastors to change. Reported baptisms are below 300,000 a year for the first time since 1947.

“If you love the way you do church more than the people of your community, then you won’t have a fulfilled ministry,” Stetzer said.

He called on Southern Baptists to be evangelists.

“I want to speak lovingly as my co-laborers in the gospel, but we need to quit praying for revival in this nation when we won’t even go visit our unchurched neighbor,” he said. “Baptists love evangelism as long as somebody else is doing it. But the idea that it’s someone else’s job has gotten us into the moment where we find ourselves today.”

His message resonated with Lamar Chastain, who, at 50, recently finished seminary training.

“We can’t walk into church on Sunday and go into a time warp — to the 1970s or 1950s,” said Chastain, of rural North Carolina. “We must share Christ’s message in a culturally relevant way.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.