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.

Pippa, originally from Norfolk and now living in Whitchurch, Shrops., said it was her sister who first suggested she should be a "TikTok vicar". "

She added: "When I moved to Whitchurch, I was like ‘well, maybe I'll give it a go'. "

"I made a few videos and they weren't getting many views but I was having fun. I was just making them for myself, to be honest. "

"And then one of them went viral and I felt like 'I might as well carry on now'. "

"It's mostly a very joyous thing, which is really fun." "

Pippa, who has 20,000 Tiktok followers, says her videos tend to be both comedic - and informative - in nature, which allows her to connect with a younger audience.

In one recent video, which has amassed nearly 900,000 views and 129,000 likes, Pippa jokingly told her audience that they should consider "giving up men" for Lent with the caption "Jesus was such a girl's girl". "

Pippa said forming this connection requires challenging the youth's perception of the church and Christianity.

She added: "For Gen Z, there is a high spiritual awareness and drive but that's not correlating to church attendance figures and things like that."

"There is a gap between young people and organised religion - I think it's the organised part of religion that Gen Z really struggles with. "

"A big reason why I started doing these TikToks is because I think for a lot of Gen Z, the Church of England is either irrelevant or, let's face it, the reason why we're often in the news is not for good reasons. "

"So I think there is a lot of mistrust between the Church of England and young people. "

"And I completely understand why - I do not blame people for that."

"A big part of my TikTok, for me, is just trying to gently push back against misconceptions, and what people may think church is."

"The Lent video went much bigger than I predicted. It also really shocked me because I am so used to feminist theology and viewing Jesus as feminist and things like that. "

"I forget that, for a lot of people, they see feminism and Christianity as completely mutually exclusive. "

"So the comments on that and the engagement with that was a real shot in the arm to remind me that actually a lot of people see Christianity as quite misogynistic. That was really interesting. "

"And when you have positive engagement like that, it's so life-giving. I'm really helping people just gently explore what they might be missing in all of this." "

While Pippa's parents practised Christianity, Pippa said she was not brought up very religious at all.

The youngest of four, Pippa was left to decide her own faith and said she hadn't given it much thought until she was studying at university.

Pippa said: "I kind of fell into it."

"My mum is Christian but my dad was raised very strict Catholic, and he didn't want to do that to his own kids. "

"We went to church at Christmas and Easter, so we knew what it was about and I quite liked it. "

"But I grew up in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere where just kids didn't go to church because it was really boring. "

"It wasn't until university that I actually started looking at what it meant to go to church and what it meant to be a Christian." "

Pippa, who studied history at undergraduate level, said: "There was a very clear conversation - it was like a lightning bolt moment. "

"I was walking on a road with my boyfriend at the time. I did history but I didn't want to go into teaching or archiving or anything like that and I was like ‘I don't know what to do with this degree'. "

"We talked about all the sensible options, and then we kind of got into the ridiculous ones - plumber, engineer, astronaut. "

"I was like ‘oh, I could be a vicar'. And there was this really weird thing where I thought 'why did I say that?'"

"But after that, I just couldn't shake it." "

Despite not knowing exactly what a vicar does in their day-to-day life, Pippa threw herself into it and attended theological college.

She added: "The amazing thing about this job is that you can make it what the community needs it to be, what you're good at, what needs to be tended to. "

"So being a priest does look very different on very different people and it does get shaped a lot by where you are. "

"But I'm also aware the Church of England is going through a time of change. It's becoming a bigger and bigger role and it's changing as we go, which is quite exciting but also a bit fast-paced." "

Pippa does everything from wakes and weddings to hospital chaplaincy and teaching teenagers ethics.

She visits care homes and visits members of the congregation who have become too frail to leave the house. Much of her time is also spent writing sermons.

While her TikTok has been transformative on a number of levels, Pippa recognises it does not replace the work she does at the church itself.

Pippa said: "This is where I do get a bit concerned with the TikTok stuff: I'm very aware social media is not a replacement for church. "

"This is a really interesting bit in academic theology right now asking 'can you have virtual religion?' "

"For me, I come down quite hard on the no - because I think there is something about human communities that have to be face-to-face. "

"I don't want to encourage people to stay online."