Young female vicar becomes online hit with millions of views on TikTok

SWNS

A young female vicar has become an online hit with millions of view on Tiktok after sharing videos of her life inside the church.   Reverend Pippa White, 29, only began her channel a year ago as a way of connecting with the younger generation after moving to a parish in Shropshire.   Since then the former barmaid has become known as "The Tiktok Vicar" and amassed tens of thousands of social media followers.  Pippa shares lighthearted behind-the-scenes videos of her life at St Alkmund’s Church as well as going to Taylor Swift concerts and playing rugby.  The Church of England priest said she wanted to help represent young women in the church and promote faith with the likes of Generations Z and Alpha.

Transcript

00:00So I am Reverend Pippa and I am the curate for Fools, Tilstock and Whitcher churches.

00:06We are right at the top of Shropshire on the border with Chester and I do quite a lot of

00:11TikTok-ing in my spare time. If you're not churchy I should probably explain what a curate is.

00:17You spend two or three years at a college doing academic training in the Church of England

00:21and then they don't just throw you into a parish, first of all, what happens is you're an apprentice

00:26for the vicar who's already there. So that's where I am now and Chris is my boss who's been

00:32training me up. But at the end of the three years now I'm fairly qualified, fairly ready

00:38for the next step. So I go off and I find my own parish somewhere. So I originally wasn't

00:43planning any of it. Obviously I was on TikTok kind of like anyone in their 20s and my sister

00:49was also, well still is also on TikTok and she said you should be a TikTok vicar and I

00:53thought, oh I don't know, I'm not really sure. And she kept persisting and she was like yeah

00:58yeah yeah be a TikTok vicar, be a TikTok vicar. And so I thought okay well like I'll do a few

01:02videos to see how it goes and the rest is history. The reception has been really really interesting

01:09and one of the big reasons I started the whole TikTok thing is because I found it quite hard

01:17going through training and discernment and even into curacy. I knew very few priests who looked

01:24like me who were women in their 20s and you know you know there are some out there but I really

01:29struggled with representation for quite a long time so that's why I did it. And it's kind of the same

01:36on TikTok as in real life. You have loads of people saying oh well A I didn't realise women did this job

01:41because I think a lot of people get quite confused and think only men can be vicar still.

01:45But also when you're quite young as well they get really surprised and they think oh

01:50didn't really realise these kind of vicar's were out there. We've just hit 30 years in the Church

01:55of England of having women priests. I think it's much more for people outside. So I recently did a

02:02TikTok which is kind of sending up men but the response was from so many women they didn't realise

02:11you could be a feminist and a Christian and so many people outside the church don't realise

02:16that feminism and Christianity actually really go hand in hand. So that has been a big thing

02:23that I want to kind of champion. It was really really weird to start with when my parishioners

02:30started seeing my TikToks because in the early stages in my head it was two very separate realms.

02:38I thought okay well I've got my like day-to-day real life ministry here and then I also do

02:43my TikToks and they were quite removed. But no so one of my parishioners, his granddaughter

02:49shows him my TikToks on her phone because he doesn't have TikTok himself. But also at the

02:56school like the staff and the kids which is a bit worrying because they are too young to

03:01be on TikTok. But again it's I think people really really like it and they I think people find it

03:10quite a breath of fresh air and I wonder if that's why people sort of think it's so fun to watch.

03:15So I am now at a stepping stone point because I finished my training and I would love to find a parish

03:21and go be a vicar because TikTok is fun but sort of being with people around people that's what I

03:28really get the buzz off. So I would love to have my own church somewhere. So hopefully somewhere

03:34in Shropshire is hiring and like please.

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