Jason Howard
Jason Howard serves as the Senior Leader of The Sanctuary Church in Pittsburgh, but he would tell you first that he is a man carried by the love of God. Marked by both deep personal brokenness and unexpected grace, his life is a story of how God can rebuild what feels beyond repair and turn ashes into a place of encounter.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Jason encountered God at sixteen at a youth event—a moment that powerful and decisively altered the trajectory of his life. A visit to the revival in Toronto as a teenager deepened that call. He walked away from a promising path in performing arts, choosing instead to lead people into the presence of God through worship and to give his life to seeing a generation know Jesus personally and intimately.
After graduating from Hillsong International Leadership College in Sydney, Australia, Jason became a familiar voice in Pittsburgh’s faith community through worship leadership and honest, passionate preaching. In 2012, he launched a downtown Pittsburgh campus for Amplify Church that drew many who were hungry for real connection with God. After completing a Master of Arts in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary, he was asked in 2019 to serve as senior pastor of the multisite Amplify Church—an assignment that further stretched his heart, his leadership, and his dependence on God.
Behind the scenes, Jason’s greatest work was happening at home. In 2007 he married, and over the next decade he and his wife built a beautiful, blended family through the adoption of four children—two from Lithuania, one with special needs from China, and a foster child from the United States. His journey as a father in a multicultural, neurodiverse home has become one of the most sacred and formative parts of his story.
In recent years, Jason walked through profound personal and vocational loss. As his wife battled addiction and their marriage ultimately ended, he was entrusted with full custody of their children. At the same time, creative and theological differences with church leadership led to his dismissal from Amplify Church. Those months were marked by grief, uncertainty, and hidden wrestling—but also by a deeper surrender. In that crucible, Jason did not find a platform; he found a deeper understanding of the power of God.
From that place, The Sanctuary was born—not as a strategy, but as a desperate “yes" to what God was doing.
The Sanctuary is a church centered on the radical love of God, passionate worship, and real encounters with the Holy Spirit. Leaning away from performance and toward simple obedience, Jason began to pray for the sick, lay hands on the hurting, and make space for the supernatural. In the heart of Pittsburgh, stories of healing, restoration, and revival have begun to emerge.
In recent years, Jason has traveled to places like Brazil, Uganda, and South Africa to serve local churches and lead healing and impartation gatherings, humbled to witness God do what only He can do. Yet his primary calling remains at home—investing in The Sanctuary family and raising his four children with steady, imperfect, fiercely devoted love. Jason married Jamie in 2026 and together they have the honor of raising seven kids, pioneering the expansion of God’s Kingdom and having a lot of fun through it all.
Whether preaching in front of many, praying for the wounded at an altar, or sitting at the dinner table with his kids, Jason Howard desires to be one thing: a man who knows Jesus. His voice is for the overlooked, his story is for the broken, and his life is an ongoing testimony that Jesus still meets people in the ruins and rebuilds them into something beautiful.