Our Pastor/Rector
The Rev. Jonathan Bratt Carle

Jonathan was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but moved to New Brunswick, Canada at a young age when his parents took up posts as professors of music at Atlantic Baptist University. Jonathan began the first grade in a French immersion program and was fluent in that language throughout his childhood, youth, and young-adulthood. This shaped Jonathan’s curiosity about language and culture from an early age. Jonathan, along with his older brother and their parents became Canadian citizens, and Jonathan remains a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

Jonathan again moved with his parents to Montreal (while his brother went off to college), so that his mother could pursue a Master of Divinity degree at McGill University. Jonathan’s parents became Presbyterian, but the experience of leaving the Baptist Church had been difficult and acrimonious (The Alliance of Canadian Baptists at that time did not ordain women.) and at the age of 16 Jonathan lost interest in anything to do with church, finding too much of it to be hurtful.

The Spirit always gets HER work done, however, and while a music major and student of classical voice at McGill University, Jonathan found his way to St. Mathias Anglican Church and was offered the position of Cantor and Choral Scholar, discovering the riches of the Anglican Choral Tradition and the English Catholic liturgies of the Eucharist and the Daily Offices. Jonathan served in that role for three years until the completion of his Master’s degree in 2003, and the experience allowed him to imagine a different way of being a follower of Jesus than the fundamentalism which characterized his ecclesiology of origin. From that time, Jonathan has always considered himself an Anglican, broadly speaking. In particular, that the ethical life and ministry of the Body of Christ is created and sustain by the mystery of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist marks Jonathan’s own personal journey and continues to define his spirituality.

Jonathan’s sojourn among the United Methodists was rich and joyful in many ways (particularly in that it led him to Vanderbilt where he met Jessica…) but lacked this essential element of understanding the eucharistic presence of Christ as the quintessential experience in our understanding of ourselves and our ministries of compassion and justice with others. After seven years of good ministry, Jonathan realized he needed to go home to the Anglican Tradition. With the help of his wife, Jessica, he found the courage to look for new ministry and found a position as hospice chaplain. Jonathan resigned his credentials in the UMC and was received into the Episcopal Church in November 2022. The next three years of discernment and work brought Jonathan finally to his joyful reordination as a deacon and priest.

In November 2025, Jonathan was called to serve both Two Churches (Holy Cross Episcopal + Ascension Lutheran) in Kentwood, MI, and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Wyoming, MI – each on a half-time basis.

Jonathan lives in Alger Heights with Jessica (a biomedical ethicist at Corewell Health) and their two young children (who remain members of a Presbyterian Church in Grand Rapids.)