Marriage and Parenting Pastor Appeals to Austin’s Tech Savvy Couples with Solid Content, Mentoring
By Amy Morgan
Jason Ogle serves at Austin Ridge Bible Church as the Marriage and Parenting Pastor, with responsibilities from pre-marriage up to crisis care. The non-denominational West Austin church spreads over three, soon to be four, campuses and averages attendance of 7500 people weekly.
Jason’s been married for 23 years. He and his wife, Tracy, met in college, marrying soon after graduation. He admits the couple struggled for the first few years of their marriage, a journey which helped him develop a heart to help pre-married and young married couples today. Jason served as a lead pastor at another church for 13 years, but after the Ogles raised their two children, he felt God moving him in a different direction. The pastor of Austin Ridge invited him to start the church’s family impetus from the ground floor two years ago. Jason’s role is to help people make proactive investments in their marriage so that “by God’s grace they might avoid crisis,” he said. “If they are throwing plates at each other, they go to our care team.”
Austin Ridge is fortunate to have developed a plan for families in crisis. Their care department evaluates situations and provides short term counseling. Staff members refer to their network of trusted counselors in the Austin area when they realize a couple may need more time or resources than they can provide, for example when someone is struggling with an addiction. Jason says the care department tries to be sensitive to the fact that finances can be a barrier. They also partner with another local church that has developed a “really solid” counseling ministry.
He follows up with couples and counselors to whom Austin Ridge has referred to gauge their experience, noting that some counselors might have once been good but have changed their views or are now not in alignment with the church’s beliefs. “No therapist can solve every marriage problem,” he said, noting that most churches can’t have a comprehensive counseling center but can know to whom to refer.
In contrast to crisis care, Jason is primarily responsible for people who want their marriage to be better. “We were doing a good job for the broken families, but by the time those knocking on the door of the care pastor came to get help, things were really bad.” His role has been to plan enrichment events and date nights to emphasize family strengthening.
“Family and marriage ministry open the doorway to evangelism,” he said. “People are looking to the church to provide answers to relationship issues, and we want to help.”
His senior pastor and leadership team have been behind Jason’s efforts 100%. One of the elders told Jason he had been cheerleading for this position and praying for him for 20 years. Because of the buy-in from senior leadership, Jason has not had to push for financial support of his programs. “Our goal as a church is to provide examples to the community of what a godly family looks like. This matters to us. It has been part of the culture. When I have a plan they (leadership) say, ‘Beautiful –What do you need? Go do it!’”
It helps that the senior pastor is real and authentic about his own marriage, Jason added. He models the good and bad seasons and points to Jesus as the answer. This normalizes the need to invest in marriage. “If he doesn’t have it all together, if he talks about how selfish he was, people think they might be able to open up about things, too.”
As Jason has only been with Austin Ridge for two years, he is still evaluating curriculum and developing a feel for what works, describing his collection currently as “eclectic.”
“Bottom line – we want people to enjoy the joy God intended in marriage. We don’t just want to do a class so they learn something about marriage or host an enjoyable retreat. We want to be more than entertaining; we want to be transformative. Individualized care is where the needle moves most – it’s more than just fluff and ‘love each other’ and ‘go on date nights,’” he said.
What he’s seen be most effective is a mentoring environment. Austin Ridge offers mentor-led small groups as well as retreats for five or six couples that provide more individualized care. Often, they’ll use a big date night as a recruitment enticement, then connect attendees to life groups and mentoring relationships. They are sensitive to connect mentors and couples with common demographics, personalities or unique situations like a second marriage or blended family. “It’s like matchmaking,” he said. “We try to pair people with some kind of connection.”
Austin Ridge uses the Prepare/Enrich curriculum and is adding SYMBIS for pre-married couples, which fits well with their mentoring emphasis. They also create some of their own curriculum. Jason’s keenly aware of keeping resources fresh and updated, and especially as Austin is home to a sophisticated, tech-savvy consumer.
Jason said finding lay couples to be part of Austin Ridge’s marriage ministry team has not been difficult. “The absolute truth is that God has been working to recruit – we don’t even have a formal plan – people just volunteer!” Part of his mission is to make sure the volunteers are supported with good resources and training. He’s created multiple pathways to train and put mentors in the right place, ensuring first that they have a good grasp of sound doctrine. They’ll pair newcomers with seasoned mentor couples from whom to observe. Mentoring a young married couple is a great place for newbies to start, he noted.
Training helps overcome the objection of not being qualified, but Jason also encourages couples who are hesitant because their marriage “isn’t perfect.” “We tell them, ‘Good, no perfect marriages are allowed.’ It’s not where your marriage is, it’s where your marriage is heading. Sometimes they’ll have specific things to work on for a while. Sometimes God uses people to normalize that marriages are imperfect, and that’s a great way to be used,” he added.
In addition to mentoring, Jason relies on volunteers to help him organize and execute Austin Ridge’s marriage events and their myriad details. “Finding a really good team of people who God’s wired to love that makes all the difference,” he said.
He’s also learned to simplify things as much as possible. Austin Ridge streamlined their Valentine’s event in 2024 after learning lessons from a more complicated offering the year prior. “Last year we had a meal and tablecloths. This year we did appetizers so more people could attend. We are ok with not being over-the-top flashy so we can provide good content to as many people as possible.” He’s realized his audience “cares about having fun rather than decorations” and wants “content that will actually help their relationships.” “Knowing your audience and what your church can offer that’s unique is important.” For example, most couples who attend Austin Ridge have the means to have a date night – so a “night out” isn’t as important to them as the quality of the content.
As marriage ministry has ramped up at Austin Ridge, Jason admits it has been a struggle to get priority for his work on the church calendar. “We’ve had tremendous growth with new ministries starting up,” he said. He realized that marriage ministry doesn’t necessarily have to follow the school calendar like other areas tend to. “Everything starts in January, but there’s nothing in February except mine,” he added. He also waited to start small groups and a parenting summit in the fall until six weeks after school started to give people time to settle in.
When asked why Jason is passionate about marriage he said, “I believe that the practical proof that the Gospel is true is the difference it makes in our homes. The truth it claims to be is more than doctrine and apologetics. How does your home look different than mine? How is your ethic better than mine? God’s original intent was for man and woman to dwell together in fruitful unity. Marriage saves the world because it points to Jesus.”
He mentioned again his desire that someone would have helped him and Tracy during their earlier years. He also noted how rewarding he finds it to help a couple turn around a marriage headed toward divorce. “Multiple times we’ve had couples tell us on retreats how life changing it was,” he said. “When couples talk about their struggles and how God’s healed them, it’s contagious!”
He advises those who want to be more intentional about serving marriages to start with the pre-married couples, because “there’s already a natural reason for people to want to talk to somebody.” Just like a youth pastor who starts a new program with middle schoolers rather than the graduating seniors, start a pre-married class or program (using prepared curriculum like Prepare/Erich) then expand the class to meet needs as their relationships mature. Couples could graduate to a life group and use a study for marriage enrichment that will connect them to the church.
The other essential: create and maintain a list for where to refer those in crisis. “People will reach out when they are going through a difficult situation, and that’s when the church can be prepared with help and hope.
“Know you are not alone. You don’t have to have an official program with funding. There are ways of sharing skills and creating a safe environment,” Jason said. He also found inspiration in books like Instruments in the Redeemers Hands, by Paul David Trip, Mentoring Marriages, by Harry Benson, and Helping Couples, by Les and Leslie Parrot that explain how to disciple and pour into people.
“It’s amazing that we live in a time when churches and organizations recognize that marriage is more than something to throw a sermon at once a year. We have a strategy that’s important to the church and society. We get to be part of it, and it’s exciting.”
