Rev. Mashaun D. Simon centers his preaching, writing, and scholarship on cultural competency, empowerment, and care.
A metro Atlanta native, Mashaun is the chief executive officer of Home Outreach Inc. (HOI), a community based entity committed to curating effective community building partnerships and initiatives. HOI is informed by his ministerial work, as well as his academic endeavors. He is a doctoral candidate at Columbia Theological Seminary, where his research engages the intersection between grief, identity, and church hurt. He is the former senior pastor of House of Mercy Everlasting (HOME) in College Park, GA.
An award-winning writer, Mashaun has written for NBC News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Black Enterprise, Bloomberg News, Ebony Magazine, and Essence Magazine, 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.
Mashaun has an extensive background in providing successful administrative support, creating cultural competency and affirmative action programming and training, as well as overseeing countless and successful media relations and marketing campaigns, and providing recruitment messaging support for several institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations in the metro Atlanta area and beyond, including Spelman College, Kennesaw State University, University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing, Columbia Theological Seminary, and the Tony-award-winning Alliance Theatre.
Mashaun is 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. He has also held leadership roles within local chapters of NABJ on both the professional and student level.
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.
