The work deals with several relevant and current questions related to church theory, sociology of religion and pastoral theology, which for the first time combined in this way lead to a "contextual pastoral theology". Following and by continuing the pastoral theological debate, pastoral theology is consistently drawn into church theory. Insofar as church theory prescribes a context-sensitive approach, pastoral theology can now be related to a specific context. On the one hand, this is rural-peripheral, on the other hand, it is about East German areas, which are described in connection with the sociological research of religion as a stable, non-denominational majority culture. So what does it mean to hold a ministry in this context? How will the situation at the focal points of the church structure develop? The analyzes show a clear picture of the current situation and the most likely further developments: A pastoral theology that only considers the pastoral ministry is too weakly positioned for the coming developments.