7 Hilarious April Fools’ Ideas for Churches

We know church leaders are always trying to prepare for the next holiday. You have Easter sermons to prepare, Christmas to consider,  and Mother’s Day to get ready for.

But what about April’s Fool’s Day?

Every church leader needs a good repertoire of pranks to pull on the rest of the church staff. No need to fret. We can help. Here are seven April Fools’ ideas that will make people laugh without getting their ire up in the process (hopefully).

1. The worst-tasting caramel apples ever

You’ll need to prepare in advanced for this trick, but it’s one you can play on your whole staff.  Just google a recipe for caramel apples and replace the apples with onions. 

Make sure you skin the onions without cutting into them. If you cut into them, there’s a higher chance that someone’s going to be able to smell the onion when they go to take that epic first bite.

There’s a good chance your staff is already nervous about April Fools’, but don’t let that stop you. You can make an actual caramel apple that you can eat in front of them to put their minds at ease.

2. An awful new brand for your church

You’ll need an accomplice for this prank. Get someone to help you develop an awful new church brand Have someone help you design terrible branding for your church. Email your church leaders announcing the new look and ask them to tell you what you think. The difficulty is you need to make the rebrand bad enough to get a reaction but not so obviously bad that people will catch on right away. You could have the logo be a little off, or write a tagline that just doesn’t work.

You could consider name changes like…

• Holy Community Community Church
• Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus Our Savior Church
• Dangerland Community Church
• Breaking Dawn (or any other Twilight title) Church

Or you could suggest some new church taglines:

• We’ll greet you with a holy kiss
• Hell? No!

Once the critiques start coming in, make sure you seem hurt by the response. Act like you can’t see the problem. You could keep the joke going all day if you’re believable enough.

3. Reorder keyboard numbers

This is a pretty simple prank. If your coworkers have PC keyboards with the typical number pad on the right, you can switch the keys for 7,8, and 9 with the keys for 1,2, and 3.

What makes this a great prank is that it’ll get people even if they use these keys frequently. People are so accustomed to where the keys are located they won’t stop to consider some could be off. It actually makes more sense to the eye to see them that way. It won’t be until they use the keys that they’ll get confused. Their natural expectation will be for one to be in the lower left spot, but they’ll see the seven there. When they see the seven, it’ll make some sense that it’s there. It’ll be terribly confusing for them.

Another great thing about this prank is that they might not notice it for months. It’s the April Fool’s joke that might pay off in June.

4. Trip back to kindergarten

This will be a frustrating but humorous prank for anyone in the office but particularly for those without children at home. Late on March 31 or early on April 1, take all the crayons from your children’s ministry department and use them to replace writing utensils in the rest of the office.

The next day when they need to write anything they’ll need to use the crayons you’ve provided. You may need to have pens and pencils handy to quickly change back just in case there is an important contract that needs to be signed or a check that needs to be filled out.

For an even better response, act incredulously when someone notes the lack of pens and pencils in the office. Act as if you always use crayons for writing utensils. Spend some time brainstorming reasons why crayons are better anyway (a variety of colors, etc.).

5. The ultimate church Tinder strategy

To make this effective, you’ll need to keep the joke going for as long as possible. Try not to laugh when you make the explanation to your social media person or you’ll ruin it. For this joke, it will be particularly challenging.

Tell your social media person that you read a story about a church that had a lot of success by employing a strategy with Tinder. Ask him or her to create a proposal that describes how your church can make the most of Tinder, as well. This joke will land better if you have the conversation through text messages while you’re rushing around to different appointments. Don’t respond right away. You want to make your social media person think about your request for a while. Give him or her plenty of time to start doubting your sanity in the process.

When you do talk to them, you need to stay naive. When they try and tell you that it’s a dating app, and it doesn’t make sense for churches, ask them to explain how it works. When they’re done laying it out, insist that they can make a profile for your church that people can swipe left on. Then ask them to come back in an hour with a good bio that will attract singles.

6. Mysterious voice

One of the great things about bluetooth speakers is that they can be small, inconspicuous, and you can send stuff to them from pretty far away! Hide a bluetooth speaker around someone’s desk and periodically send them movie dialogue, Celine Dion songs, ghost sounds, or pre-recorded messages made especially for them.

7. The theologian who sees all

This is a great joke to try if you have a high-traffic printer. Take a photo of Luther, Augustine, Pope Francis, Billy Graham, or John Piper and tape it to the underside of the printer cover.

Whenever someone leaves too much white space on their print, their will have a theologian peeking at them. It will take a few copies before anyone notices why this is happening.

Tell Us Your April Fools’ Ideas!

Have you pulled some great pranks on your staff in the past? We’d love to hear about them! Share them with us in a comment. We might use them in a future April Fools’ post!