Miranda Lambert's spouse, Brendan McLoughlin, experienced culture shock over more than the volume of fried foods served by his mother-in-law when visiting the country star's hometown of Lindale, Texas.
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"I took him home. He's a New Yorker, and he was like, 'Why are there so many churches everywhere?!" Lambert told Southern Living's Biscuits & Jam podcast.
Specifically, Smith County, which includes the cities of Tyler and Lindale, has 212 churches of various Christian denominations.
"You know the South. That's just how it is. There's a Baptist church on every corner," Lambert added.
Lambert credits a rural culture that centers on worship for both her musical beginnings and her personal resolve.
"I sang in the youth group, I sang in the choir. My dad played guitar in the church band. It was a big part of what I build my foundation on," she said. "And I think that having that small-town childhood with the living off the land, and survival skills that my dad had instilled, and then our faith as a family — I feel like that really carried me through those first crazy years of getting into the music business.
"It's not easy and you can be pulled in a thousand directions," she continued. "I feel like if I hadn't had that foundation, I could've strayed off in a million other directions and maybe not stayed true to my core."
Per research from 2010, there were a whopping 27,848 churches in Texas. Findings from the study aren't completely in line with regional cliches, though, with New York having the sixth most congregations in the country with 14,110-- placing it ahead of such Bible Belt hotbeds as Georgia and Alabama. A 2015 report counted over 4,000 denominal Christian churches in New York City, where McLouglin previously worked as a police officer.
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