SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — The Texas church where more than two dozen people were killed by a gunman during Sunday services will be demolished, the pastor said.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy told leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this week that it would be too painful to continue using First Baptist Church as a place of worship.

Pomeroy discussed the state of the building with the denomination’s top executives, who traveled to the rural community in a show of support, a national Southern Baptist spokesman said.

The pastor described the church as “too stark of a reminder” of the massacre, spokesman Sing Oldham said.

No final decisions can be made without consulting congregants, but Pomeroy discussed turning the site into a memorial for the dead and putting up a new building on property the church owns, Oldham said.

Charlene Uhl, mother of 16-year-old Haley Krueger, who died in the attack, agreed that the church should come down.

There should still be a church “but not here,” she said Thursday as she visited a row of white crosses commemorating the victims in front of the building. She said her daughter attended worship services and a weekly Thursday night youth group meeting held by another victim, Karla Holcombe.

Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman via AP A couple comfort each other at a community center in Sutherland Springs, Texas, near the scene of a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside of the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than 20 people.

Nick Wagner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Carrie Matula embraces a woman after a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. Matula said she heard the shooting from the gas station where she works a block away.

Nick Wagner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Law enforcement officials work the scene of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017.



Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Investigators work at the scene of a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday Nov. 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside of the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than 20 people.

Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Investigators work at the scene of a deadly shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Sunday Nov. 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside of the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than 20 people.

Nick Wagner, Austin American-Statesman via AP A man wipes his eyes after a deadly shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside of the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than 20 people.



San Antonio Express-News, Zuma Press/TNS A group gathered in prayer outside the Community Center, after a mass shooting occurred at the First Baptist Church on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017.

Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Enrique and Gabby Garcia watch investigators at the scene of a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday Nov. 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside of the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than 20 people.

Erich Schlegel, Getty Images Law enforcement and forensic officials gather near the First Baptist Church following a shooting on Nov. 5, 2017 in Sutherland Springs, Texas. At least 20 people were reportedly killed and 24 injured when a gunman, identified as Devin P. Kelley, 26, entered the church during a service and opened fire.



Erich Schlegel, Getty Images People gather near First Baptist Church following a shooting on Nov. 5, 2017 in Sutherland Springs, Texas. At least 26 people were reportedly killed and 24 injured when a gunman, identified as Devin P. Kelley, 26, entered the church during a service and opened fire.

Nick Wagner, Austin American-Statesman via AP A woman prays with a man after a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017.

Eric Baradat, AFP/Getty Images Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at a press conference on Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas about the First Baptist Church mass shooting. "There are 26 lives that have been lost. We don't know if that number will rise or not, all we know is that's too many, and this will be a long, suffering mourning for those in pain," Abbott said.



Suzanne Cordeiro, AFP/Getty Images Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt (C) speaks at a press conference on Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas about the First Baptist Church mass shooting. "There are 26 lives that have been lost. We don't know if that number will rise or not, all we know is that's too many, and this will be a long, suffering mourning for those in pain," Texas Governor Greg Abbott (L seated) said.

Darren Abate, The Associated Press Law enforcement officers man a barricade near the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs after a fatal shooting, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Suzanne Cordeiro, AFP/Getty Images Police block a road in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Nov. 5, 2017, after a mass shooting at the the First Baptist Church. A gunman went into the church during Sunday morning services and shot dead some two dozen worshippers, the sheriff said, in the latest mass shooting to shock the US. "Approximately 25 people" were dead, including the shooter, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told NBC News. At least 10 people were wounded. The motive was not immediately known, he added.



Nick Wagner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Law enforcement officials works at the scene of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017.

Darren Abate, The Associated Press Members of the FBI walk behind the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs after a fatal shooting, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott consoles Ann Montgomery, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs during a candlelight vigil for the victims of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.



Darren Abate, The Associated Press Mourners participate in a candlelight vigil held for the victims of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Darren Abate, The Associated Press Mourners participate in a candlelight vigil held for the victims of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Jay Janner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Bailey LeJeaune, 17, and David Betancourt, 18, hold candles during a vigil in Sutherland Springs for the victims of a deadly shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. A man opened fire inside of the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than 20 people.



Nick Wagner, Austin American-Statesman via AP Lisa Cavazos speaks with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during a candlelight vigil held for the victims of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Jeannie Brown, visiting from Indiana, stopped at the site with her daughter, who used to live in Sutherland Springs but left decades ago for San Antonio.

Asked whether the church should be destroyed, Brown said: “Yes. Who would want to go back in there? But then if it is destroyed, does that mean he (the gunman) won?”

Other sites of mass shootings have been torn down, including Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, where a gunman killed 20 children and six adults in December 2012. A new school was built elsewhere.

A one-room Amish schoolhouse near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was torn down in 2006, 10 days after an assailant took children hostage and shot and killed five girls ages 6 to 13.

The previous site of the school is now a pasture. A nearly identical schoolhouse with a security fence was erected nearby and named New Hope School.

The father of the gunman broke the family’s silence and said his relatives are grieving.

Michael Kelley spoke to ABC News on Wednesday from his home in New Braunfels, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) north of Sutherland Springs.

He said he does not want the “media circus” surrounding the attack by Devin Patrick Kelley to destroy “our lives, our grandchildren’s lives.”

A motive remains unclear, but the younger Kelley appears to have targeted the church because it was attended by his wife’s family. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being shot and chased by two residents when he was leaving the church, authorities said.

The gunman shot and killed 25 people at the church. Authorities have put the official toll at 26, because one of the victims was pregnant.

All the victims died at the scene, except for one child who died at a hospital. Eleven people remained hospitalized Thursday with wounds they suffered in the attack.

Associated Press Religion Writer Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.