A pastor who served at a Bergen County church for five years has been arrested on federal charges of having child pornography in a Massachusetts town where he had been working as a kindergarten teacher.

The Rev. Gregory C. Lisby, pastor at Christ Church in Ridgewood from June 2010 through May 2015, was arrested by the FBI on Thursday following a raid of the rectory of the Worcester Episcopal church where he lived with his husband, according to court documents. A criminal complaint states Lisby, 40, was hired for the 2019-2020 school year as a teacher for Holyoke Public Schools.

The federal warrant charges Lisby with possession of child pornography and states a Microsoft employee discovered the images and videos on a company server in December 2018 and reported them to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The center then forwarded the files to the Massachusetts State Police on Jan. 4. Investigators found 180 images and 15 videos depicting child pornography on a OneDrive account in Lisby’s name, authorities said. The images included boys between the ages of 8 and 15, authorities said.

In the same OneDrive account, investigators found Microsoft Word documents – including a cover letter Lisby wrote to apply for a teaching position.

“If I could teach any grade, I would love to be a kindergarten teacher,” Lisby wrote, according to the complaint. “The joy, spontaneity, and openness to learning of younger children is what attracts me to early childhood education.”

The account containing the porn files was created on May 19, 2009, according to the complaint.

When FBI agents advised Lisby of his Miranda rights during a raid on the rectory on Sept. 11, Lisby acknowledged the OneDrive account belonged to him. The day after the raid, but before his arrest, Lisby sent an email to the principal of Holyoke Public Schools stating that he wished to resign, authorities said.

“Last night, I was accused of an awful crime that could put our Holyoke children in harm’s way,” the email states, according to the complaint.

In addition to his teaching position, Lisby worked as a teaching assistant in a summer program designed for disabled students, according to MassLive.com. Lisby also worked in Massachusetts as a substitute teacher, instructional aide and a preschool teacher’s assistant. He also worked as a social worker in other states and was a minister in Episcopal churches in New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Lisby was suspended in 2018 from his position as rector of All Saints Church in Worcester in 2018 for “an inappropriate relationship with an adult that did not involve sexual contact,” according to a letter from Bishop Douglas J. Fisher disclosed after his arrest.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.