The After-Service Three Questions

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A free, 20-minute kit for any congregation, in any faith

What this is: Right after your gathering ends — while everyone is already there, already listening, already trusting one another — three open questions get asked, from the front or in small circles, and the room’s answers get harvested onto one shared sheet. Twenty minutes, start to finish.

Kids welcome. Food shared. Nobody pays.

This kit is written for whatever your community calls the moment right after everyone’s already gathered — after the service, after jummah, after shabbat, after langar, after puja, or whatever your own tradition calls that moment. From here on: your service, your room, your rules.

A note to the leader

This is yours the moment you pick it up. Change every word — the questions, the order, the language, the opening prayer or blessing that frames it. An imam, a pastor, a rabbi, a granthi, a priest, or whoever leads your own room knows this room better than any page ever could, so rewrite anything that doesn’t fit. It runs after service on purpose: the room is already gathered, already warm, already trusting — that’s rarer and more valuable than any flyer or event could build from scratch, and twenty minutes borrowed from it costs the room almost nothing.

The 20 minutes

Minutes 0–2 — the frame, in your own words

Tell the room, briefly, what’s about to happen: three questions, a few minutes each, and a way to write down what’s said so it isn’t lost. Something like — reword freely:

“Before everyone heads out, we’re going to take a few minutes together. I’m going to ask three questions about this city and this neighbourhood. However you’d like to answer — out loud, or just in your own heart while someone else speaks — is fine. We’re going to write down what this room says, together, on one shared sheet. Nobody’s name goes on it. This isn’t for any organization — it’s just this room, thinking out loud, together, for a few minutes.”

Minutes 2–17 — the three questions

Two ways to run this. Pick whichever fits your room’s size and rhythm, or blend them.

Option A — front-of-room mic. Ask each question in turn, from the front or with a handheld mic passed to a few volunteers. A minute or two of silence or a few spoken answers after each question is plenty — this isn’t a debate, and nobody is required to speak.

Option B — small circles. Break into circles of four to eight (families can stay together). One person per circle jots a line or two per question on scrap paper or the harvest sheet itself. Regather for the last minute to name one thing each circle heard.

The three questions — ask them in this order, adapting the wording freely to your own language and tradition:

What in this city are we grateful for, and would protect? (This one warms the room up — and it often surfaces who already protects what we love: a neighbour, a shopkeeper, a crossing guard. Keep an ear out for a name worth nominating later.)
What’s broken for our families — something we see every week? (No need to solve it here. Just name it. Cross-streets or a neighbourhood are welcome but optional.)
What should this city look like in 2030, for the children we bless here? (However your tradition marks a child’s welcome — baptism, naming, bar or bat mitzvah, aqiqah, or simply a hand on a small head — this question belongs to that child’s future.)

Minutes 17–20 — the harvest

One scribe — you, or whoever’s nearby — writes down what the room said, with the room’s own okay, onto the shared sheet below. This takes about three minutes and needs only three lines per person or per circle:

One VISION — drawn mostly from question 3: “Toronto in 2030 should ___.”
One COMPLAINT — drawn mostly from question 2: what’s broken, cross-streets optional.
One NOMINATION — drawn mostly from question 1: a neighbourhood superhero, named or described (the retired nurse, the guy who shovels every driveway on the block, whoever comes to mind).

Anyone in the room is also welcome to skip the shared sheet and add their own answer straight to unitetolove.ca/harvest on their own phone — the QR code below goes to the same place. Either way is complete. If the online form isn’t live yet, the paper is the record — nothing is lost.

If your congregation prefers to hold this whole conversation in its own language, hold it in your own language — many congregations are the city’s best translators already, and the harvest form takes any language you bring it in.

The shared-note harvest sheet

Photocopy this section, or copy it onto any page. One sheet per room is enough — this is a shared note, not individual worksheets.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AFTER-SERVICE HARVEST — [congregation / room name] │
│ Date: ____________ People present (a rough count): ______ │
│ │
│ No names are collected below. Ever. │
│ │
│ VISIONS — "Toronto in 2030 should ___" │
│ 1. ________________________________________________________ │
│ 2. ________________________________________________________ │
│ 3. ________________________________________________________ │
│ (add more lines as needed) │
│ │
│ COMPLAINTS — what's broken? (cross-streets optional) │
│ 1. ________________________________________________________ │
│ 2. ________________________________________________________ │
│ 3. ________________________________________________________ │
│ │
│ NOMINATIONS — a neighbourhood superhero │
│ 1. ________________________________________________________ │
│ 2. ________________________________________________________ │
│ 3. ________________________________________________________ │
│ │
│ Submit this sheet: unitetolove.ca/harvest │
│ (printable versions carry a QR code; the typed link works │
│ the same without one) │
│ If the online form isn't live yet, the paper is the record — │
│ nothing is lost. Mail or drop it off whenever it's easy. │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

On privacy: nobody’s name is taken, ever — not attendees, not who said what. The only count kept is roughly how many people were in the room and what the room said. Some people here may have reasons to stay unlisted; this sheet was built so that’s never a question anyone has to ask.

On money: this kit is free and asks for nothing. It never touches your congregation’s own collection, offering, or fundraising — those stay entirely yours, untouched and unmentioned here.

Translate this kit

Translating this page is itself a civic act — a one-page translation belongs on this same shelf. Priority languages, per the multilingual program (pending census confirmation): Cantonese, Mandarin, Punjabi, Urdu, Tagalog, Spanish, Tamil, Italian, Portuguese, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Farsi, Bengali. Send translations through the same link, unitetolove.ca/harvest — and if your congregation runs the whole conversation in a language not on this list, that’s welcome too; the form takes any language.

A free, open kit. Copy it, change it, translate it, make it yours. — uniteTOlove.ca