Improbable People Ministries

The Music & Ministry Of Sally Klein O'Connor

Grace Has Arrived From Sally Klein O’Connor

by Leave a Comment

 

It’s finally here! Sally and her producers Chad Watson and Richard Barron spent a solid year on her new album, GRACE, and every note of that slow-roasted home musical brew is blended with love and ready to consume. If you’re hungry for Sally’s first recording in 7 years be one of the first to order your copy now.

Would you prefer a taste of the main entree first? Then a taste it will be: We hope If My People  will be to your liking and you’ll stay for the entire meal. Bon appetit!

NOTE: Orders shipped
to U.S. addresses only!

 

Sally Klein O'Connor Improbable People Ministries

 

 

 

 

New Home For IPM Video Archive

by 2 Comments

It’s easy to take something for granted when you grow up in close proximity to it. Every now and then I wonder how weird it is for kids of celebrities to see their parents, or their parents’ work, talked about by so many people who don’t even really know them. Truth is, even though my parents are far from famous, they are known in certain remote circles. So I have had a taste of that. And from time to time it really hits home to me the sort of honor it is to be a daughter of Michael & Sally O’Connor.

The most recent example came when I was transferring their lyrics to an iPad. This project is to give Mom better visibility on the words when she’s sharing in concert.

Hopefully it will encourage her to retire the old lyric binder, with pages so creased and worn that the edges look more like aged felt than paper.

The project only took me a few days, but in the process I rediscovered my parents’ music.

 

In the process of digitizing the lyrics, I retyped everything, double checked for my own typos, then played around with formatting a good bit. The project only took me a few days, but in the process I rediscovered my parents’ music.

Yeah, rediscovered. If you grew up with Hey God and Come Meet The Author of Life playing on loop for a decade while you’re going to sleep, you might want to get a few years’ distance from the albums, too. So by the time I began digitizing, over a dozen years later later, the lyrics struck me like it was my first time hearing them.

[Read more…]

Something-Something

by 16 Comments

Today is my bride’s birthday.

Today, April 12, 2021, Sally turns,  ummm . . . something-something. We are apart today with nearly a country between us. If the country were Monaco or Liechtenstein maybe that wouldn’t seem like such a glaring distance. But the country is the United States and Philadelphia seems a world away from Los Angeles right now.

[Read more…]

Musings Of An Aging Minstrel

by 10 Comments

Sally Klein O'Connor Improbable People Ministries

So . . . I am about to go into the studio and begin recording some of my songs for our 8th album. As I look back on earlier days of our ministry and listen to my voice in its prime, I appreciate it more than I ever valued it then. I struggled with so much insecurity in myself as a human being—let alone as a singer. And now that I am older, my voice has a lot more ups and downs. In my fleshly self—in other words, ego—I wrestle with all of that, wanting it to be so different.

I see how vastly different is the Lord’s measure of me than my measure of myself

But God, who knows our humanity from the inside out, continues to show that sometimes in the weaknesses and imperfections He can speak more loudly than in my polished moments. This has been true throughout the three-plus decades of Improbable People, but even more apparent in these days. I see how vastly different is the Lord’s measure of me than my measure of myself and, unfortunately, of others at times.

[Read more…]

‘Twas the Night Before New Year’s

by 5 Comments

NOTE: Many families and ministries
 send out year-end or Christmas
newsletters, updating friends
and family on the events of the
past year. This is our version.

It’s Christmas Eve as I begin writing. And, before anything else, I am thankful to my Lord and my King for His extravagant love in my life; that He would descend from on high and all His glory to come to us as a helpless babe into a harsh world at a cruel time to offer Himself,

2020 began as any other year . . .

an acceptable and final sacrifice for our sin, so that we could be reconciled to our Maker. It’s beyond any understanding I will ever have—the goodness of God and the greatness of His love!!

2020 began as any other year, and like many others I had plans and agendas.

In early February we were able to bring A Tour of Roses to Paradise, CA, where the terrible fire in 2018 demolished almost all of the town. During that time we also put on a women’s conference for free. It was called “Something Beautiful for Someone Beautiful.”

Many hearts in the town were touched, some prayed to receive the Lord. We gave thanks to God for what He was doing in and through us!

One of our immediate personal concerns involved finding tenants to rent the back house. Long time tenant of 40 years died in September 2019. The place was a mess and we commenced the process of cleaning up, painting, etc. So we were ready to rent, and put out signs and such at the end of January, hoping to rent sometime in February.

[Read more…]

Laying Down The Sword

by 4 Comments

I have been thinking back to when I used to fight with my dad all the time. Our arguments could go as long as 4 hours—literally. I clocked it a couple times. By that I mean I happened to look at the time when we sat down starting to talk, and again when I got up and it was over. Minutes and then hours flew by because all the anger I had accumulated from past wrongs—real and perceived—had reached a maximum saturation point and just came spilling out of me with the least provocation.

Such are the times we are living in. It is my observation that objective truth—as much as we are capable of recognizing it—has very little weight in this season. What matters to so many is the emotional truth—the wrongs and injustices done, both real and perceived that, having not been adequately addressed have accumulated over years.

He only had to speak one small statement I disagreed with

It was the same with my dad and I. He only had to speak one small statement I disagreed with, and it would trigger all the previous words and injustices, real and perceived. I could never get my fill of hurting him back verbally for all the times he hurt me and my brother with his rage, creating complete fear and distrust.

[Read more…]

Experiencing God

by 3 Comments

I am facilitating a group from our church in a study called Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. We are about 3 weeks away from finishing the workbook which takes about 13 weeks in total. I have probably engaged this study myself and with others possibly 14-15 times now over the last 25 years. It is an awesome study! One might even say—life-changing!

Everything up until this point has been about our individual walk with God, but recently we start on Unit 10, which is about the church—in essence a community of believers. And once again I am so profoundly struck by how far away we are from the prayer Jesus prayed—and I think is still praying—in John 17, that we would be one as He and the Father are one, because this, in fact, is our witness to the world that Jesus was sent by the Father.

Paying respect to the letter of the law, but ignoring the spirit.

What I see instead is our fleshly passions heating up over what and who we think is “right” and what and who we think is “wrong.” I grew up with an understanding of the right and wrong my parents taught me, along with a complete set of Encyclopedia Brittanica in their very impressive hardback bindings with a special bookshelf just for them. Everything was included in those books—or so it seemed. But a few years ago I sold them, because knowledge and information has changed so drastically over these last few years that much of what they had to offer seemed outdated. And so, too, our understanding of right and wrong. So small and so limited, so very flawed, much like the Pharisees. Paying respect to the letter of the law, but ignoring the spirit.

[Read more…]

The God Who Sees

by 5 Comments

I remember reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl several years ago. In it he shared some of his experiences in one of the death camps during the Holocaust. At the core of what he was saying was the idea that most of those who survived the camps were people who had a purpose or reason to live. They had something—or someone—to come back to or live for.

I think of our all too human need to attain some significance in this life and the great longing to know that we matter—that we are seen and our lives are not in vain.

And then I consider Hagar. She was not the classically chosen mother of the promise God gave Abraham. She was the woman Sarah put in the arms of her husband Abraham out of fear and doubt that God might not fulfill His promise to give Abraham an heir that would actually come from

“You are the God who sees me.”

Sarah’s womb. And even in that reckless choice of Sarah’s, God was gracious to Hagar and brought Abraham his son, Ishmael. When I first learned this story in full, after coming  to faith, the conclusion I drew from it was that Sarah became impatient and tried to fulfill God’s promise on her own in a cultural context.

[Read more…]

30

by 11 Comments

 

It was a hot-and-bush-was-burning day
When God said Moses look my way
You got to travel home and tell Pharaoh
Let my people go, oh no
Let my people go

Early this morning the ministry received an email from a woman requesting permission to use the lyric from our song Improbable People for Impossible Tasks. Two things about this request stuck out to me. First, we don’t often get these kinds of emails, asking permission to use a lyric or a song for something special—only now and then. Second, and more importantly, her email came the day before the 30th anniversary of our ministry, Improbable People Ministries.

There are moments in life when everything changes…

Coincidence? I think not.

[Read more…]

A Time To Heal

by 3 Comments


NOTE:  We’ve just created a new music video based on the classic  song by Sally Who Shall Separate US? ,  located at the bottom of this post. It pertains to the theme of this post. We hope it will bless you and that you will pass the link on to loved ones.

To My Friends and Fellow Believers,

I wonder if the anger and violence that is going on at this time in our country quite possibly may be more fatal than the virus. It is a soul-tearing issue. It is a deep abyss of separation by color, race, gender, politics and religion. And while injustice and evil should never be ignored, I cannot

We are called to be in this world—not of it.

see the constructive value of people burning and looting and rioting. From my point of view it only makes the divide deeper and stirs up even deeper fear which serves to separate us more surely.

 

[Read more…]

Our Blog

From Here to Eternity Blog

From Here to Eternity Blog Banner

Something Beautiful Conferences
No conferences currently scheduled.

Something Beautiful Conference Banner


Subscribe to Free Blog

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Improbable People Ministries, 6028 St. Clair Ave., North Hollywood, CA, 91606, http://www.improbablepeople.org. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

FREE • BLOG SUBSCRIPTION