Meet Katie Newsome | Executive Director and Pastor at Union Coffee

We had the good fortune of connecting with Katie Newsome and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Katie, we’d love to hear about a book that’s had an impact on you.
I recently read “Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration” by Amy Wallace and Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar Animation and Disney Animation. It tells the fascinating and inspiring story of how Pixar came to be and how to create a sustainable environment for creativity. The book reminds me of how creativity often doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but rather it happens best when we are intentional about creating the right environments in which people can create. The most sustainable creative environments have characteristics like love, laughter, candor, frank talk, lack of fear of failure, trust, and spirited debate.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I am the Executive Director and Pastor at Union Coffee shop in Oak Lawn, which has been known as a sanctuary neighborhood for marginalized people over the past 150 years. Union is a business, a non-profit and a church, all wrapped up into a generous coffee shop that ministers to the spiritual and physical needs of its community, while also helping the community support its own causes. Income generation, including everything from selling coffee to engaging neighbors in co-funding ministries, powers our capacity to meet the needs of our neighborhood. Union dedicates at least $25,000 each year to support Oak Lawn UMC’s efforts to care for unsheltered neighbors in Dallas. We have also raised thousands of dollars for North Texas Food Bank, Project Transformation, Wesley Rankin Center, Junior Players, Capes 4 Kids, Readers 2 Leaders, Mustang Heroes, Cafe Momentum, North Texas Tornado Relief, and The United Methodist Disaster Relief.

I heard a calling into ordained ministry in 2009, while working at Project Transformation, a non-profit that works to transform communities by engaging children, college-age young adults, and churches in purposeful relationships. Since then, I graduated from SMU with a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies and Psychology in 2012, and then I graduated from Perkins School of Theology at SMU with a Master’s degree in Divinity. In 2018, I was ordained as an Elder in the United Methodist Church.I have served as a hospital chaplain at Methodist Dallas Medical Center, a pastoral intern at Oak Lawn UMC, and an associate pastor at First United Methodist Church of Coppell and First United Methodist Church of Rockwall.

While women are ordained in the UMC, there are still many challenges women face within the church. There are still many people who believe women have no place in the pulpit or church leadership. In places I have served, I have had people make unsolicited remarks about my body, my clothing, and my dating life. I’ve found myself in situations where I have had to ask the question, “Is this happening because I am a woman?” Sexism is deeply woven into many aspects of our lives, and there is still much work to do in the church.

As I try to navigate these moments, I have a trusted group of clergywomen that have been and continue to be an incredible sounding board. I haven’t always spoken up (especially in my earlier years), but I believe that naming this inequality at any point we see it is part of the work we are called to in order to end sexism, both within the world and the church. I believe women when they tell me their stories, just as I hope they believe me. I have found people that are willing to be my bulldogs and fight and advocate for me, even when I’m not in the room.

I have learned that to confront the patriarchy, we have to keep asking hard questions. We have to learn to be annoyingly resilient. We have to learn to speak up and share our story even and especially when we don’t think others will believe us. We have to name and call out inequalities when we see them, and we have to be bravely vulnerable with our stories. And we have to do intentional work to create sanctuary–respite from these things that seek to kill us.

At Union, one of our core values is Sanctuary. We believe that Sanctuary is more than a place. Sanctuary dwells in people and swims in cups of coffee that warm our hands and tell us we are okay. Sanctuary is a choice that we make to offer refuge to those who are threatened. It is an action that makes us a bit more like God.

At Union, we provide sanctuary through Rainbow Ink, an exclusively LGBTQIA+ writing group. We provide sanctuary by cultivating leaders that create new spaces that work to uplift Dallas, like the Dumpling Warriors, a place for people of Asian descent to build community and create social change.

We provide Sanctuary for anyone who has ever questioned their faith or the church—particularly those in their 20s and 30s. Union is a space where people can ask big questions and come as they are.

Sanctuary-making is such important work, and my work will forever be about it.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Of course, I would first take them for the best cup of coffee in Dallas at Union Coffee! We’d probably spend some time at the Perot Museum and Pegasus City Brewery, and we might enjoy some Tex-Mex at Chuy’s or southern cuisine at Street’s Fine Chicken. We might go shopping down in Bishop Arts, and stop for dessert at Emporium Pies. We’d also check out Bishop Cidercade or Louie Louie’s Piano Bar.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
While it might seem a bit cliche, Union has played a tremendous role in developing me into the person I am today. I found Union as both a coffee shop and church when I was a jaded seminary student, not really sure if I wanted to pursue a career in the church. Union became a home and community for be to both learn and believe that there is another way of being in ministry that felt a lot less weird and a lot more authentic. Mike Baughman, Union’s founding pastor, has been a tremendous mentor and friend to me over the years. So much of who I am is because of his vision for a place that doesn’t draw a dividing line between “secular” and “sacred”, but rather sees its charge to cultivate the divine spark in our neighbors for the good of Dallas and the world it inspires. Union has been my home, and I’m so thrilled to step into this new role of Executive Director and Pastor in a place that has been so formative to me.

Website: www.uniondallas.org

Instagram: @uniondallas

Facebook: Union

Other: katie@uniondallas.org

Image Credits
Kat Demitrowicz, Lizbet Kloot Palmer, Katie Newsome