When Vicki Garlock first stumbled across a Religion News Service article reporting that a man in India had earned a new Guinness World Records title by visiting 76 places of worship in a month, a thought hit her almost before she finished reading.
“I literally looked at my husband and said, ‘Oh, I think I could beat that,’” recalls Garlock, an Asheville interfaith educator and author who runs the organization World Religions 4 Kids.
A quick mental calculation — “that’s like two places a day” — was all it took for her to imagine not just topping the record but smashing it, a spark that ultimately propelled the Kankakee, Ill., native to visit an astonishing 185 Chicago houses of worship in September and claim the title herself…