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Biography
Michael O'Connor
In 1982 at the age of twenty-six Michael O'Connor packed up his Ford Mustang and left the comfort of friends, family, and a good-paying job in
Sacramento for the vast unknown social wilderness that was Los Angeles. O'Connor was a songwriter-a lyricist, to be precise-stuck in the body of a grocery clerk. He'd had enough of his song demos making
postal round trips accompanied by form rejection letters. If the music industry was going to bar him from fame and fortune, they were going to do so to his face.
Later that year Michael enrolled in a songwriting class where he met his collaborator-for-life, Sally Klein. In 1986 the road to fame and fortune, already producing nothing but potholes, took an abrupt
U-turn when Michael accepted Jesus Christ into his heart and life as a direct result of an error made by Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner in the sixth game of that year's World Series. O'Connor, a
lifelong baseball fanatic, realized if God could use a baseball game to get his undivided attention life was never going to be the same again.
In 1987 the duo married, continuing to chase their musical dreams. After the birth of their first daughter in 1989, Michael and Sally realized that chasing rainbows for a pot of gold was no way to raise a
child. So they offered their songs up to God. If anything was ever to come of their gifts, He was going to have to resurrect the dream.
That same year, Moishe Rosen, Executive Director of Jews For Jesus, heard one of their tunes and wondered if the couple had ever considered the ministry as a means to share their songs with the world. It
was a ridiculous notion. Neither of them were ordained and were, in fact, relatively new believers.
Still, God persisted. In late 1989 Rosen helped them get their first album made, "Hey God, Are You Talkin' To Me?" In 1990 the call to ministry became unmistakable and the couple set out to tour the
United States as Improbable People Ministries, so named because the couple believed God chooses to use the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.
As the year 2000 and their ten-year anniversary in music ministry approached, Michael felt God's leading in a new direction. O'Connor began writing a book about two of his great loves-God and baseball.
Based on his unusual experience in becoming a Christian, Michael espouses the bold theory that God loves and uses the game for his own good purposes. As O'Connor looked back he realized God had used
baseball as a teaching tool all his life and, eventually, as a means to draw Michael closer to Him. Sermon on the Mound is the result of that trip down Memory Lane.
Michael and Sally O'Connor continue to minister their songs from coast to coast and reside in Southern California with their three daughters, Dusty, Bonnie, and Shannon.
For more on Improbable People Ministries and the music of Sally Klein O'Connor, click here.
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