After seminary, Pastor Jonathan Chechile thought he would be on foreign missions rather than returning to New England to lead a church. But with the region’s religious landscape more closely resembling Europe than the rest of the United States, the Vermont native sees a parallel between his initial vision and his current work.

“I’m in ministry because I felt a sense of God calling me to preach and to teach the gospel, but I’m in New England because it’s home and because there’s a great need,” he said.

Chechile has been serving at the Congregational Church of Salem since mid-August, moving from Massachusetts with his wife, Veronique, and three children: Joseph, 10, Amelie, 7, and Calvin, 2. He said he got heavily involved in church in high school and felt the call to the ministry during a missions trip.

He’s currently working on a doctorate in ministry through Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, his alma mater, exploring the role of historic congregations in New England and the special cultural approaches that pastors have to take to revitalize them.

“There’s a whole movement of us ... in trying to recruit and train up guys to do that because you can’t just walk into New England and thrive,” he said, noting the many small congregations throughout the region that are struggling. He added that pastors from the South especially struggle because it takes longer to become part of the community and rebuild the congregation.

Chechile said the Salem church’s search committee reached out to him based on a listing he had posted on Gordon-Conwell’s alumni site. The local group selected his the same weekend as another church, but he felt Salem was a unique opportunity because of the church’s history, both in the building itself and its historical role in the town.

He also thought it would be a good place for his kids to grow up.

Chechile said he’s still learning the congregation and its needs and doesn’t want to be one of those pastors who starts pulling levers before he knows where everything is; he said he was looking forward to the church’s 50th Apple Festival last weekend so he could meet the community.

Eventually he wants to grow the children’s ministry to develop the next generation of disciples, and he hopes to see older parishoners serve as “spiritual grandparents” to the kids in the congregation.

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