Serving in a ministry

If you read at Mass, serve at the altar, usher, sing, or bring Communion to the sick, your parish schedules you through Sacramentum. Serve is where you see when you are serving, tell the parish when you are away, sign up for open positions, and ask for a replacement when something comes up. It works on your phone or your computer, and it takes about two minutes to learn.

Opening Serve

Sign in at your parish's Sacramentum address with your usual email and password. You arrive in My Parish, your own page for everything you do with the parish. Choose Serve in the sidebar, under Ministry. On a phone, tap the menu button at the top left to open the sidebar.

If you are also a priest or an extraordinary minister who makes visits, you will find Serve in Sacramentum Go too, as one of the tabs along the bottom.

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Bookmark My Parish, or add it to your phone's home screen from your browser's share menu, so Serve is one tap away.

You need an account to use Serve. If you do not have one yet, see Creating an account, or ask your parish office to invite you.

The sections of Serve

Along the top of Serve are the sections you have access to. Some appear only once you belong to a ministry.

Section	What it is for
My schedule	Your upcoming assignments, and the actions you can take on them.
Family	Everyone in your household who serves, in one list. Appears if your parish has your family linked.
Requests	Invitations to cover for someone, your own replacement requests, and trades.
Open positions	Positions you are eligible for and may claim.
My hours	The hours you have served this year, and logging hours you served on your own. See Duties and your hours.
Availability	The dates you cannot serve.
Preferences	Which services you prefer and how often you would like to serve.
My ministries	Where you serve, and how to ask to join somewhere new.

Asking to join a ministry

If you are not part of a ministry yet — or you would like to serve somewhere new — open My ministries.

1. The top of the page, Where you serve, lists your current ministries. Each one shows Active or Pending.
2. Below, under Serve somewhere new, you will find the ministries your parish has opened for volunteers.
3. Tap Ask to join on the one you want.

You will see Request sent — a ministry leader will be in touch. Your request goes to the leader of that ministry, who reviews it and adds you to the roster.

If no ministries are listed, you will see No ministries are open for signup right now — please contact the parish office. Not every parish opens every ministry for self-signup; a phone call to the office is the way in.

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Some parishes use a sign-up form on their website instead. Either way, your request reaches the same place, and a leader matches you to your parish record before you are added, so your serving history stays in one piece.

What to do first

If you have just been added to a ministry, three things will make your first month go smoothly:

1. Enter your availability. Tell the parish about the vacation in July and the standing Tuesday commitment. This is the single most useful thing you can do — it prevents nearly every scheduling problem before it happens. See Your availability.
2. Set your preferences. Say which Mass you would rather serve, and how often you are willing to serve. See Your serving preferences.
3. Add your schedule to your calendar. One tap puts your assignments in the calendar app you already look at. See Your serving schedule.

Your credentials

If your ministry requires a certification — Safe Environment training is the common one — you will see My credentials in your ministries section, with the expiry date on each.

Sacramentum emails you before a credential expires. Renew it through your parish or diocese as usual, and let the parish office know so they can record the new certificate. An expired credential quietly removes you from the schedule for any ministry that requires it, so it is worth acting on the first notice rather than the last.

If something is wrong

You cannot edit the parish's schedule yourself, and you should not need to. Almost everything that goes wrong has a self-service answer:

Situation	What to do
You cannot serve on a day you are scheduled	Ask for a replacement. See Replacements and trades.
You would rather swap with another volunteer	Offer a trade. See Replacements and trades.
You are away for a stretch	Add the dates to your availability.
You are being scheduled too often	Set a serving frequency in your preferences.
Your name or email is wrong	Update it in your profile, or ask the parish office.
It is less than a couple of hours before the service	Call the parish office. Online requests close before a service starts.

Troubleshooting

I do not see Serve in My Parish

Serve appears once your parish has turned on the volunteer portal and has linked your account to your record in the parish directory. You do not need to belong to a ministry yet. If it is missing, ask the parish office.

"Serve is temporarily unavailable"

Your session is still valid; My Parish could not load your ministry access. Tap Try again. If it keeps happening, sign out and back in.

I do not see Open positions or Requests

Both appear once you belong to a ministry, or once you are recorded as the guardian of someone who does.

I do not see the Family section

It appears only when your parish has linked you to a household with other people who serve. Ask the parish office to check your household record.

What's next

• Your serving schedule — see your assignments and add them to your calendar
• Your availability — tell the parish when you cannot serve
• Open positions — claim a position that needs filling

Related articles

• Your serving preferences — which services, and how often
• Replacements and trades — when you cannot make it
• Families and young servers — serving as a family, and acting for a minor
• Creating an account — if you do not have a login yet