Katie Shemanske

Meet Katie

Born in the Windy City, I moved to Oklahoma at a young age. I grew up striving to be the best at anything and everything; equating status with success and never taking failure as an option. I attended Oklahoma State go pokes, where I fought to balance an architecture degree and involvement in a sorority. The Lord brought me to Dallas after graduation in 2014 (the one city I swore I would never move to) to work for an architecture firm I was "going to spend one, two years tops at before I jet-set off to the next bigger, and better city.”

The Lord, in his kindness, has been redirecting my steps and showing me what it looks like to be still (cease striving), ever since. Though I accepted Christ as my Savior at a young age, I didn’t fully understand what it looked like to walk in the fullness of a relationship with Him and his people until this new season of the Lord stripping me of all that I held tightly onto..

I quickly got plugged into Watermark (because that’s what you do when you move to Dallas), where I joined a community and started leading as a Junior High Small group leader. As I continued to build my own kingdom and name within architecture, the Lord used His people to reveal to me this false, dissatisfying identity that I was hiding behind. I had too much of the world to enjoy the fullness of Christ, and too much of Christ to enjoy the ignorance of sin... a lonely, yet common truth. I climbed the corporate ladder and quickly achieved the coveted opportunity of moving to my favourite city (long live the Queen) for a season. Upon being asked to stay permanently, I felt this uneasiness and need to return to community. I didn’t know it yet, but what felt like the crushing of all my hopes and dreams, was a God that doesn’t allow us nor want us to stay in the things we have enslaved ourselves to but pursues us fervently, individually, and uniquely.

If you did the math, it has now been 5 years since I moved to the city I would never move to, left the profession I would never leave, and I’m now working for the church I’d never work for..

If you think the Lord can’t, and won’t change hearts, I’d love to chat with you and share the hope that I have found that only comes from the one whom sacrificed it all. For. You.

P.S. If I wouldn’t have accepted this job I would have been a DJ… DJ Kold Brew.

P.S.S. I have a running Dallas coffee shop spread sheet, if you need a place to hang, holla at cha girl.