NBC 5 in Chicago has reported incorrectly that Teen Vogue published a list of the “100 most awesome” churches in the nation. The Daily Herald in Chicago’s western suburbs published a submitted item on March 13 that said St. Mark’s Church in Glen Ellyn had made the list.
The designation came instead from Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, a blogger on Medium and creator of The Resistance Prays, a TinyLetter publication. Teen Vogue’s Stephanie Russell Craft wrote a brief profile of Graves-Fitzsimmons in December.
Graves-Fitzsimmons asked readers to consider five criteria as they determined church awesomeness:
- spiritually enriching community
- vibrant worship
- social justice warriors
- fully LGBTQ-inclusive
- [invites] people into Christian identity/belonging
On Feb. 19, Graves-Fitzsimmons published a list of the first 100 churches nominated for the designation. These Episcopal churches made the crowd-sourced list:
- All Saints, Pasadena, California
- All Souls, Berkeley, California
- Epiphany, Leeds, Alabama
- St. John’s, Washington, D.C.
- St. Mark’s, Glen Ellyn, Illinois
- St. Matthew’s, Westerville, Ohio
- St. Paul’s, Jeffersonville, Indiana
- St. Paul’s Cathedral, Boston
- St. Stephen’s, Richmond, Virginia