Introducing DIOCESE

by · April 1, 2025

Before you read the following post, take note that the original publication date was April 1. That’s April Fools Day, for the pranksters among us. Carry on.

For too long, the evangelical world has been a hotbed of inefficiency, waste, redundancy, and redundancy. Church staff members go over budget. (Church staff members of the student pastor variety don’t even know what a budget is, brah.) We are poor stewards for a simple reason: we’re not paying attention.

Today I’m pleased to introduce you to a new initiative that will force you to pay attention. It’s called DIOCESE: Departmental Inquiries On Church Efficiency, Sustainability, and Excess. (Ironically, we used many word when few word do trick, but sometimes the acronym wants what the acronym wants.)

DIOCESE will audit your systems as they’ve never been audited before. No stone will be left unturned. No sacred cow will remain ungrilled. The people of DIOCESE will infiltrate your organization at the highest levels, looking for areas of waste and trimming accordingly:

  • Do you dump the baptism tank after one dunk? No more. DIOCESE has developed a Bromine-like chemical for the Christian church. BroOfMine™ will shock your baptistery water into submission. What can wash away your sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What makes the water clean again? Nothing but the naturally-occurring halogen elements found in BroOfMine™.

  • Are you still singing the first, second, and fourth verses of every hymn? Tell me you were involved in the early 90s worship wars without telling me. DIOCESE strips the third verse, and the chorus, and every third vowel, cutting your worship time by 20%. Amazng Grace, hw sweet th sound / Tht saved wretch like m. … see how much better that is?

  • Do you have a committee on committees? Take a minute. Stand in front of a mirror. Say “committee on committees” out loud and listen to how ridiculous you sound. Do you think you’re making your mother proud? With DIOCESE, one padlock is all we need to secure the church conference room and ensure we never have a group that exists to manage other groups again.

  • Does your lead pastor have his own private bathroom in his study? Not on DIOCESE‘s watch. In a stealthy strike force move, we’ll uninstall the burnt orange toilet seat and the 1960’s era Aqua Velva. In its place, we’ll build the server farm for the next wave in your stewardship plan: CryptoMammon (patent pending, details to follow).

  • Do you have a staff member with a blog? (editor’s note: this seems fine. Review bullet point before publication.)

…and those examples are just the beginning. DIOCESE has already saved churches untold budget dollars and volunteer hours by removing handbells, shutting down the 7 a.m. contemporary service targeting people who don’t wake up before 10, replacing single-origin non-GMO coffee creamer with the powdered junk, and putting senior staffing decisions into the hands of your newest intern: that kid named Braxton with the forearm Hebrew tattoo.

If you’re interested in seeing what DIOCESE can do for your church, fill out this simple interest form to get started.

Big thanks to my friend Jeremy Berger, who inspired the idea for this post.

If you’re up for more foolishness, here’s a look at April Fools Days of yore…

photo credit

2 Responses

  1. Mary Shinholt says:
    April 1, 2025 at 11:34 am

    That was a good one, Danny. I laughed out loud several times. 🙂 Even after all these years of following your blog, it still takes me a minute to figure out what’s going on. Keep that sense of humor…it’s critical! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Carolyn Hoover says:
    April 1, 2025 at 6:47 pm

    Exactly what Mary said! I giggled my way through this post. Don’t ever stop doing these!

    Reply

Start the conversation.

Subscribe

New content, straight to your inbox, twice a week. Easy-peasy.