Wearing Joy With Jill Simmons
By Leah Eppen
Several years ago, Jill Simons found herself questioning her reaction to an online conflict in the Christian community. Stuck between the temptation to engage in the conflict or to stay silent, she felt neither option truly got to the heart of the matter. While sharing her struggle and confusion, Jill’s husband suggested that joy might be missing from those conflict-based interactions. This conversation planted a seed in Jill, fostering a new mission and dream in her heart to offer the Christian world another avenue for engaging with others in Christ: to equip people to be missionaries of joy, from the attitudes of their hearts to the accessories they wear.
Sparked by the desire to catalyze this joy, Jill founded a jewelry and lifestyle company, Pink Salt Riot, in 2015. Evolution of an Entrepreneurial Spirit Jill’s interest in business began in her teenage years with a company focused on selling her handmade jewelry at a local farmer’s market.
Since then, she’s always centered on creating quality jewelry pieces for her diverse clientele. It was only in 2015 with the launch of Pink Salt Riot that she integrated the joy of her faith and her love of jewelry.
Since beginning her company with the Holy Spirit as her business partner, Pink Salt Riot has seen success, always expanding the reach of their mission.
“The mission has been clarified as time has gone along because we were really ‘by Catholics, for Catholics’ in the beginning, but now we have pivoted to include a much wider range of people that are in relationship with Jesus and have access to the Holy Spirit… because there’s also not a lot provided ‘by Catholics, for everybody,’” Jill explains.
A Company Culture Built on Charism and Vocation
Where other Catholic companies may have begun from a space of deep conversion or faith, Jill’s motivations have primarily been business-oriented and market-based. But this hasn’t stopped her from steeping the culture of her company in a rich cup of life-giving virtue and joy. Much of her company policy and management revolves around prioritizing her team’s primary vocations and charisms.
She adamantly believes that each person’s unique call is what breathes richness into communities. “Your charism and your vocation are the most tangible information given to you about what cell you are in the body of Christ,” she says. “Understanding your charisms gives you permission to say yes to what you’re supposed to say yes to and no to what you’re supposed to say no to.” Because of Jill’s passion, Pink Salt Riot continues to evolve their products and services in a direction oriented around nurturing charisms in addition to the fruit of the spirit. Jill finds that the most joyful evangelizing comes from the people who go on to share her products because they are living out of a space of understanding for who they truly are and what they’ve truly been gifted with.
The Joy Box: Nurturing Joy
Pink Salt Riot’s inventory ranges widely from jewelry for men and women to journals to catch-alls, and even tapestry. But the most popular product is aptly named the Joy Box, a package full of beautiful products by Pink Salt Riot.
The primary objective of many of Pink Salt Riot’s products in both design and message is to create and inspire their clientele to become joyful missionaries. The Joy Box nourishes that mission because its subscribers are challenged to gift half of the items in their box to others.
“I always see our role as ‘we are equipping the people who are evangelizing’ rather than ‘we are a company that evangelizes,’” Jill notes.
“That’s where the multiplication of the effort comes in, because if it was just us trying to use our products to evangelize, we wouldn’t get nearly as far.”
The Beauty of Curiosity
Joy is magnetic when shared abundantly, and because the Holy Spirit is the source of joy, it is the well that will never run dry. In evangelizing, Jill finds that a sense of curiosity complements a spirit of joy. “Any kind of evangelization that doesn’t start from curiosity is going to ultimately flirt with the line of being imposed versus being sought,” she explains.
Intentional creation of design and message magnetizes interest in Pink Salt Riot’s products, often sparking conversation and drawing people in without making them feel like they already have to understand it. “Curiosity is where we should all be putting our effort,” Jill joyfully says.
She has seen this time and time again in her own journey, from business to motherhood and everything in between. Joy and curiosity are fundamental hinges to the door that invites others in.
