The Second German Church Barometer (Lämmlin et al. 2024) shows, that the Protestant parishes in Germany can be clustered into 10 types based on their subjective development opportunities. From these Clusters about one third is doing well, another third is doing badly, and the last third is exposed to both positive and negative trends. While the parishes in a positive position, all of which are located in urban areas, are finding their future in establishing target group-specific profiles based on cooperation, shared use of resources and social space orientation, the situation for the rural parishes with a poor prognosis is quite different. Large areas, little staff and infrastructure, hardly any opportunities for cooperation with other parishes. Their chance, and to some extent also the chance of the peripheral municipalities, will only lie in cooperation between church, municipal and civil society actors, in which a joined congregation- and community-building takes place through secular-religious interaction.