Pastor Amanda has been a student of Christ and music since she was a young child. She has studied both voice and piano for most of her life, and in 2010 she graduated with her Bachelors of Arts degree in Music from Northwest University, having majored in voice. Her ability to write, perform, and worship led her to compose and record her first record, “Rain” under her maiden name Amanda DuFord. Rain was met with great praise from the local Seattle community and was even accepted by the popular internet radio app “Pandora” and can still be found there free of charge.
Before being married Amanda stepped in as the worship leader for International Christian Center, where she continued to serve after being married. In 2011 Pastor Amanda got married to Pastor Christian.
In 2013 Pastor Amanda, along with her husband, moved to Singapore to work and train with Victory Family Centre, a large non-denominational Christian church, Asian Theological Centre, and accredited international Christian university. Both Amanda and Christian trained and studied intensively for a year and upon completing their program were sent to Cedar Rapids with a team of missionaries to plant a new church which would become Christian Life Church of Cedar Rapids.
In 2014 Amanda was officially ordained through Christian Life Church. She currently oversees the worship ministry at CLC, the woman’s ministry at CLC, and serves as the chief administrator handling most of the clerical duties of the church.
While church planting the Shields family grew; Amanda and Christian were blessed to have two children, Ezra Charles and Hannah Sharon with one more on the way!