Walking, and sometimes driving, around St. Louis the past couple of days, I’m struck by the differences of this downtown from, say, Washington, D.C., Atlanta or Amsterdam. Unlike New York, the city that, famously, “never sleeps,” downtown St. Louis pretty much shuts down after the cadre of suburban-housed office workers packs up and goes home at the end of a business day.

Yes, the first weekend of the General Conference Session in St. Louis was enlivened by America’s Fourth of July celebrations—the holiday marking the independence of the United States. But other than that, this city empties out quickly, and sometimes before 5 p.m.

In the shopping “mall” across the road from America’s Center—and, frankly, that’s a charitable description—an afternoon gaggle of Adventist tourists were shopping at the Walgreen’s drug store and eyeing the mostly empty building housing it. As I rode an escalator in front of some visitors from New Zealand, I felt compelled to share that this scene wasn’t typical of America’s downtowns: that many have vibrant shopping districts, and that in St. Louis, the business “buzz” is in the suburbs. They were glad for the information.

At the same time, I felt—and still feel—a little sad. We have made an impact on St. Louis. People, some at least, better know who Seventh-day Adventist Christians are, and even acknowledge that we are fellow Christians. But after 10 days or so here, might we not have done even more?

We did a lot beforehand: there was a Breath of Life evangelistic outreach, complete with local advertising, and the church also put up billboards advertising “The Ultimate Makeover” of being “Transformed in Christ,” the session theme. We advertised in local papers and tried to make our message available to the media. During the session, we did other things to reach out, including music concerts, a film festival and acts of community service.

The president of the Downtown St. Louis Partnership, a civic group, was quick to express appreciation for our visit: “Not only have [the Adventists] been one of the largest groups to meet here but also certainly one of the most pleasant. It’s always nice to have ‘company’ like this,” he wrote.

While I realize this is a business session and not primarily an evangelism event, maybe that can be changed next time, in Atlanta, or at future venues. (A suggestion: London in 2015, if the Lord allows, might be a good vote of confidence in that city, following the 2012 Olympics.) Perhaps we could build in a real public outreach component to our meetings—a convoy of health vans offering free screenings and things such as stop-smoking clinics.

There are a lot of cigarette smokers in St. Louis, it seems—a lot. We’ve had smoke come in via the ventilation system in the pressroom. It’s noticeable in the lobby of the WS Hotel. You can see clusters of smokers outside office buildings. Many of these tobacco-users seem unhappy. They need something we can give—why didn’t we make the offer more prominent?

There will likely be at least one more “next time” in which we can do more: Atlanta in 2010. Toward that end, let me offer a thought: when Billy Graham’s team planned a three-day effort in New York City, they arrived in rented Manhattan offices eight months before, working five or six days a week on what became a massive public event, which captured global headlines.

Perhaps that’s what some of us should do for Atlanta. Working with local Adventist church officials and congregations, we should spend the better part of a year assiduously working to not only make this a boom-time for hoteliers and drugstores, but a season of lasting personal change for a large part of the metropolitan area we visit.

The results of such an effort wouldn’t merely hit one year’s business bottom line. Instead, they would resonate throughout eternity.

Mark A. Kellner is a veteran journalist and the Assistant Director for News and Information at the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters. Views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Adventist News Network or the Seventh-day Adventist Church.