Mission-Ready Friendship: A Blueprint for Deeper Relationships and Life-Changing Faith

Whether we know it or not, we all have family members or friends who are fighting hidden battles of doubt, alienation, isolation, guilt, compulsions, grief, or hopelessness. But often we don’t know exactly how to offer the Good News of Jesus to them in these struggles—at least not beyond offering our “thoughts and prayers.” Mission-Ready Friendship is a roadmap for how to truly befriend your friends, not by solving their problems for them but by going deeper to become the friend Jesus created you to be.

Jason J. Simon grew up in a faithful home but wandered into darkness through his high school and college years. For years, he struggled with shame and despair until Chip, a guy he met while eating donuts after Mass, noticed that darkness and disrupted it by being an intentional, thoughtful friend. This relationship changed Simon’s life and eventually inspired him to lead the Evangelical Catholic, a national organization dedicated to helping people discover how God is already at work in the lives of our innermost circle.

This book spells out simple and incremental practices any Catholic can use to develop deeper, more purposeful friendships. You will learn how to

• become more invested, curious, and empathetic toward others;
• pray for the people God has placed in your life;
• be ready for the ways God is prompting you to build deeper friendships; and
• bring intentionality to your relationships to accompany them closer to God.

Jesus himself used these practices with his followers and sent each of them to use mission-ready friendship to share his good news with others. It’s a simple but powerful approach to relationships that promises to change lives, including your own.

Jason J. Simon is the president of the Evangelical Catholic (EC). After working briefly in engineering, he began working in the Church as a parish director of religious education and youth ministry.

In 2007, Simon graduated from the master of divinity program at the University of Notre Dame and began his work at the Evangelical Catholic. Under his leadership, the EC has experienced consistent expansion by equipping local Catholic leaders to be not only disciples but disciple makers. Simon and the EC’s staff built Reach More, a coaching process that equips Catholic lay leaders to fulfill the Great Commission from Matthew’s gospel.

Simon lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, Grace, and six children.