About Us
Our Mission
To know Christ and to make Him known.
We believe the Christian life involves living under the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, engaging in worship and fellowship, telling lost people about Jesus Christ, and seeking to obey the Word of God.
Grace Church of Hamilton is an evangelical Christian fellowship in Hamilton, Michigan, that believes in the inerrancy of the Bible, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, His virgin birth, substitutionary death and bodily resurrection and second coming. We graciously affirm God’s sovereign grace in salvation and of believer’s baptism and we believe the church is comprised of all those who have genuinely placed their faith in Christ to forgive their sins and to give them new life in Him.
Our foundation is Christ and our final authority is the Word of God. We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, the product of Spirit-controlled men, and, therefore, is truth without any mixture of error. We believe the whole Bible is inspired in the sense that holy men of God “were moved by the Holy Spirit” to write the very words of Scripture. Grace is a church full of sinners seeking to raise up our children for Christ, minister to the needs of the saints and to serve the widows and orphans. We’re a fellowship who wants to be challenged to grow, equipped to reach the lost, and inspired to serve. Our aim is to worship and glorify our great God and grow in Christ.
To read our Statement of Faith, click here.
MEET OUR PASTOR
Pastor Jonathan Schuster
Jonathan is excited to have returned home and to be living in SW Michigan. He is a native Michigander. He was born and raised in SE Michigan in a semi-rural area, so he is comfortably “at home” in Allegan County. He is no stranger, however, to this part of the state. He did his undergraduate education at Cornerstone University, where he met the love of his life, Becky (Fasold.) His college degree was in Biology/Psychology and for the early years of their marriage they lived and worked in Grand Rapids.
Jonathan worked for several years as a Federal Investigator before returning to full-time studies. He and Becky moved to Chicago where Jonathan completed his master’s degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. While in seminary, the Schusters were accepted with Greater Europe Mission (GEM) to serve as full-time missionaries to Spain. Upon completion of his degree, the Schusters moved to Castelldefels, a suburb of Barcelona. They served in Spain with GEM for four years, serving on the faculty of the Instituto Bíblico y Seminario Teológico de España (The Spanish Bible Institute.) While in Spain, they both were actively involved in a church plant in Pratt, also a suburb of Barcelona.
In 2004 the Lord relocated them to the Republic of Ireland where they lived until they joined Grace Church in July 2020. While in Ireland, Jonathan served on the faculty and staff of the Irish Bible Institute (IBI) in Dublin. He primarily taught Old Testament Studies but also courses in Church History, Mentoring & Discipleship, Leadership, and Homiletics. Jonathan also developed and taught in the Mentoring and Apprenticeship program for many years, preparing students for full-time ministry in an Irish context.
While on the faculty of IBI, Jonathan finished his doctoral degree at Knox Seminary in biblical geography. His greatest passion has been, for many years, to lead biblical study tours to Israel. Jonathan continues to teach for IBI as a visiting professor in Old Testament and maintains his role as the Director of the Holy Land Studies Program. He and his wife Becky are dual American/Irish citizens.
The Schusters have 3 “lads”: Caleb, Andrew, and Evan. Caleb and Andrew are graduates of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. Evan is currently attending Wheaton College in Illinois. Jonathan loves spending time with his family and just about anything outdoors: hunting, fishing, hiking, biking, etc., and on warm, sunny days you might just glimpse seeing him zooming around Hamilton on his ‘purple’ motorcycle.
Jonathan is “chuffed,” as he would say, to be serving as Senior Pastor of Grace Church. He loves teaching and preaching and coming alongside people to disciple them and encourage them in their daily walk with Christ. He loves a smaller church and the friendly, family atmosphere that comes with it. He describes Grace as a “healthy, growing church and there is no place I would rather be.” He also enjoys a good Chai Latte and welcomes anyone who wants to learn more about the church, who needs prayer, or to just visit, to stop by for a good Irish “cuppa!”