THE incoming Bishop of Aston, Canon Esther Prior, is praying “an impossible prayer”: for ten per cent of people in the diocese of Birmingham to attend C of E churches.

Speaking shortly after her announcement as the next Suffragan Bishop of Aston, on Thursday morning, Canon Prior, who is currently Vicar of St John the Baptist, Egham, said that she was inspired by St Paul “for being someone that prays ‘impossible prayers’, as I call them”.

Her prayer is for dramatic growth in attendance at Birmingham’s churches. “I’m praying for a tithe of the city for the Church of England,” she said — a growth which would amount to a tenfold increase on current numbers.

Canon Prior’s particular areas of focus in her new post are to be ministry and mission, and she regards the former as integral to the latter.

“The primary thing that will get me up in the morning is clergy well-being,” she said. She also wants to encourage vocations. “If we don’t get that right, mission struggles: the two are intertwined.”

While she professes to “love strategy” and not to be afraid of management speak, Canon Prior is frank about the task ahead, if Birmingham is to see the growth in worshippers for which she is praying. “Only God can give an increase, and, if we are serious about people coming to prayer, coming to faith in Jesus Christ, it has to start with prayer,” she said.

With this in mind, her first step will be to establish a group of people who are committed to praying for ten per cent. “From there, ideas will flow, but that has to be the starting point,” she said.

Born in Malawi, Canon Prior spent her early life in Zimbabwe. She left Africa for the first time in 1999, when she moved to England to train for ordination at Trinity College, Bristol.

“My entry to British society was actually quite welcoming,” she said. “I have stories of racism to tell, obviously, but I also have stories to tell where I’ve been blown over by love and welcome and acceptance.”

The murder of George Floyd in 2020 led to a “moment of unlocking” for Canon Prior: “I realised that I had been caught up in what I began to call a conspiracy of silence. I didn’t talk about the micro and macro aggressions that you get by being a black person.”

Initiatives such as the recent gathering for UK Minoritised Ethnic/Global Majority Heritage (UKME/GMH) clergy in the province of Canterbury (News, 9 September) allowed people to feel visible for the first time, Canon Prior said, which was in a sense really sad.

“Stories like that should be a thing of the past,” she said. But she also acknowledged that there was a a tendency sometimes to “highlight the things that are not going right, rather than highlighting the things that are actually good”.

In Birmingham, it was important to ask how churches could “look like the communities that they serve”, she said, and not just in relation to ethnicity: “I want everyone to feel loved, to feel that there is a place for them in their local Church of England church.”

On the divisions that exist in the Church over the Living in Love and Faith process, Canon Prior did not want to be drawn. “I have a real commitment to loving the person in front of me, and, actually, stories of love can change the narrative,” she said.

As a member of the General Synod, she has previously voted against the introduction of blessings for same-sex couples, and in favour of structural provision for those who oppose the changes.

Asked about the current situation in the Church of England in the wake of the Makin report, which was described last week by the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Jonathan Gibbs, as an “existential crisis”, Canon Prior said: “This is a time of unique challenges for the Church. . . And yet, genuinely, I am still filled with hope, because the work of the gospel carries on in local churches, and that’s always exciting to see.”

After her ordination as priest in 2004, Canon Prior served her title at St John’s, Deptford, before becoming chaplain at Blackheath Bluecoat School, and then HM Prison Cookham Wood.

In 2011, she became Team Vicar of St John the Baptist, Cove, before moving to a church of the same dedication in Egham. She was made an Honorary Canon at Guildford Cathedral this year.

The Bishop of Birmingham, Dr Michael Volland, said on Thursday that Canon Prior was “a person of lively faith in Jesus Christ and comes to us with a breadth and depth of ministerial experience”.

He said that he was “delighted” to announce her appointment, and that “her gifts will be a great blessing to the people of Birmingham and the wider region”.