Rev. Mashaun D. Simon(he/him/they) is an award-winning journalist, writer, preacher, and thought leader.
A native of metro Atlanta, Mashaun is a Doctor of Ministry candidate at Columbia Theological Seminary. His research engages the relationship between Black church culture, church hurt and Black LGBTQ+ grief. The former senior pastor of House of Mercy Everlasting (HOME) in College Park, GA, he is also a survivor of neuroendocrine carcinoma, a rare form of cancer that makes up about 0.5% of all cancer diagnoses.
Mashaun has written for NBC News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Enterprise, Bloomberg News, Ebony Magazine, and Essence Magazine, Queerty, the Counter Narrative Project’s (CNP) The Reckoning, and served as a Local News: US South contributor for GLAAD. He is also the former co-associate editor of Geez Magazine, a seasonal, non-profit, ad-free, print magazine about social justice, art, and activism for people at the fringes of faith in both Canada and the US. And co-hosted B4Nine Podcast, an audio-only, pop culture talk show for three seasons. In 2025, Mashaun received the NLGJA Excellence in Online Journalism Award.
In addition to his writing, ministry, and community work – which includes serving as the head of the board of the community-based organization HOME Outreach, Inc. – Mashaun has successfully created cultural competency and affirmative action programming and training; led several local, regional, and national media relations and marketing campaigns; and provided recruitment messaging support for several institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations in the metro Atlanta area and beyond.
Mashaun was a 2022 DO GOOD X startup accelerator Fellow, a member of the 2022-2023 class of Collegeville Institute’s Emerging Writers Fellowship, a member of the inaugural class of Sojourners’ Rising Leaders Fellowship (2021-2022), and a CNP Narrative Justice Fellow (2021-2022). He also served on the 2024 CNP Leadership Council, the AID Atlanta advisory board from 2018-2020, the inaugural PRISM board of Teach for America Metro Atlanta from 2019-2020, and the advisory board for the CNP from 2018-2019. In 2005, Mashaun became the first openly gay student representative on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Black Journalists. And is believed to be the first openly gay, Black male president of the Candler Coordinating Council for the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.
Mashaun holds a professional writing degree from Georgia Perimeter College, a Bachelor of Science in Communications from Kennesaw State University, and a Master of Divinity from Emory University's Candler School of Theology.
