24-hour prayer vigil sign-up

Hours or half hours

One-hour slots suit most churches. A 24-hour vigil needs 24 people for one each, and twice that for two. Half-hour slots are easier to commit to, but they double the number of slots to fill, so they work better for a large congregation, or for the overnight stretch only.

You can mix them. Type the evening in hours and the small hours in half hours:

• Fri 7pm-12am every 1 hour x2
• Sat 12am-6am every 30 min x2
• Sat 6am-7pm every 1 hour x2

Start and end at a time the church is open anyway, such as after a Friday evening service and before a Saturday evening one, so the first and last hours are easy to fill.

Two per hour

The starter list allows two people per hour. One is enough to keep the chain going. The second means a sick child or a late night doesn't leave an hour empty, and nobody is alone in the building overnight. When both places in an hour are taken, it shows as full.

A few days out, look at the sheet for hours with nobody yet and message everyone: "Still open: 2am, 3am and 4am. Can you take one?" Most of the gaps will be in the small hours.

The overnight hours

The hours from 1am to 5am are the hardest to fill. A few things help:

• Ask the early risers. Some people are up at 4am anyway, and would rather pray then than at 9pm.
• Offer prayer from home. Add a choice question, "Where will you pray?", with "In the chapel" and "At home". Everyone still claims an hour, the chain stays unbroken, and you know who will be in the building.
• Make the building safe. Never leave one person alone in a church at 3am. Say in the description how to get in, who has the key and where to park. If you'd rather not post the address on a link that gets shared, set the sheet to show the place only to people who sign up.

Reminders go out on their own, two days before each hour and on the morning of. For any slot before 8am, the morning-of reminder comes at 7pm the evening before, so a 3am volunteer gets it at dinner, not in their sleep.

What to ask

Keep it short. Besides "Where will you pray?", one optional question is worth adding: "A prayer intention to share with the group", as a short answer. You see the answers on your dashboard and can print them for the chapel. Only you and your co-organizers see them, so people can write things they wouldn't say out loud.

A prayer chain over several weeks

For a Lenten chain with one person praying at the same hour each day, one line does it: Daily 6-7am from Feb 10 to Mar 27 makes 46 morning slots, one for each day from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, Sundays included. People pick the days that suit them, and each one gets their own reminder.

A round-the-clock chain for all of Lent is too big for one sheet. Dibs makes up to 500 slots in one go, and 46 days of 24 hours is 1,104. Split it into one sheet per week, or cover the nights only. Dibs also doesn't make sheets that repeat forever, so for perpetual adoration, make a sheet a month and use "Copy for next time".

Holy Week and other vigils

• Holy Thursday, March 25, 2027: many parishes keep watch after the evening Mass until midnight. Thu 9pm-12am every 30 min x2 makes six half-hour slots.
• Good Friday, March 26, 2027: a vigil from noon to 3pm, in half hours.
• National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 6, 2027: a 24-hour chain from Wednesday evening to Thursday evening.
• A vigil for one person or family, during an illness or after a death. Make the sheet the same day and share it in the prayer group chat. For meals for the family, add a meal train.

For the rest of the church's schedule, from ushers to nursery, use the church volunteer schedule.

A 2027 timeline

For a vigil from Friday, February 12 at 7pm to Saturday, February 13 at 7pm, the first weekend of Lent:

• Sunday, January 24: announce the vigil and share the link in the bulletin and by email.
• Sunday, January 31: read out the open hours after the service.
• Sunday, February 7: message everyone with the hours still empty, usually the overnight ones.
• Wednesday, February 10: Ash Wednesday. Dibs sends the two-day reminder to the first hours on its own.
• Friday, February 12, 7pm: the vigil begins. Each hour's volunteers get their reminders through the night.

A ready list

The starter list above is a 24-hour vigil from Friday at 7pm to Saturday at 7pm, with two places in each hour. Paste it into Dibs, change the days to your dates, and share the link in the bulletin, the church email and the prayer group chat. People pick an hour with a name and email, no account and no ads.