Featured Fellow: Amelia Blanchard

Amelia grew up in Lancaster Pennsylvania, in Amish Country. She graduated from Wheaton College with a degree in Christian Formation and Ministry in 2020. 

Amelia is a gifted worship leader and leads the Fellows weekly in praise before the Lord. She grew up with her father--a professional percussionist--and her mother--a professional singer who used her gifts to lead worship in church. Amelia sang alongside her mother in church, and began leading worship herself during her first two years of college at Wheaton. She had the opportunity to lead on Sundays, as well as for students on short-term mission trips, and even to fly out to Ohio to lead a church youth retreat in worship. Amelia has also begun using her guitar alongside her voice in worship and has found great joy in it. 

 As she was growing up, Amelia served in many ministerial leadership positions within her church and school, but didn’t consider that this was something the Lord might have for her to pursue full-time. However, when she took one of her first ministry classes at Wheaton, it became clear to her that this was a desire which God had placed upon her heart. She’s living into this calling in many ways in her current job as part of the Fellows Program.

As a part of the program, Amelia is working as a College Life Director with Young Life. In this position she’s able to walk along college students in their journeys of faith, talking, praying, and enjoying life with them. For those who have already accepted Christ, she is discipling them and teaching them what a life of faith and transformation in Him looks like. In this position, Amelia also gets to spend time with students who don’t yet know Jesus, showing them the beauty of a personal relationship with Him and seeking to reveal the longing for Him that they have deep in their hearts.

Amelia has a passion to live in union with God, especially through prayer and spiritual disciplines--she describes this as “the cry of her heart” for others, too. Thus, she hopes to one day be able to speak and lead worship at conferences, teaching others about the Lord’s heart for them. She would also love to own and run a communal-living young adult discipleship school or retreat center where people can encounter the Lord and discover who He’s made them to be. Her kind, gentle spirit, and her hunger to go deep in Christ and lead others in knowing Him is refreshing and draws us to do the same!