Performance environments and the Catholic Church are foreign to each other. People in the middle generation, for whom professional success, influence, and a materially demanding lifestyle are important, play hardly any role in pastoral care, resulting in their feeling unwelcome in the Church, or even perceiving themselves as unwanted. The present study reflects on standards for critically appreciative invitations from the Church to this relevant and growing target group. This allows for contrasting boundary experiences that are not only theologically necessary but also provide new impulses for theology, the life of the Church, and its pastoral care.