Michael and Amy, who also happen to be husband and wife, are unique and very multi-talented music and comedic artists. With backgrounds spanning from local church teaching and arts ministries to professional musical theatre, film, television, and concert careers they bring an original, entertaining, fun, and powerful offering to the ministry setting.
Michael and Amy will amaze you with their extraordinary talents as comedians, musicians, and motivators. They will engage you with their fast-paced performances filled with comedy and the widest range of music you have ever heard. Their musical diversity, heartfelt charisma, personal testimony, and comedic exuberance, shared only as a husband and wife can, bring an eclectic and electric energy to the stage distinctly their own. But it’s their personal relationship with Jesus and testimony of his love, grace, and power bringing purpose and fulfillment to their lives and marriage, and the resulting unexpected and unlikely ministry opportunities he has in store for us all, which makes this a one-of-a-kind outreach experience perfect for churches, ministry functions, and events.
Whether performing in a more intimate setting, mid-sized venue, large concert hall, convention center or arena, Michael and Amy easily make that essential personal connection with each member of the audience, leaving an unforgettable impression inspired through music, laughter and an extraordinary chemistry, creating not only a following of fans but a family of friends. One moment you’ll be singing at the top of your lungs, the next doubled over in laughter, and then… breathless.
Michael and Amy are also available to teach, lead worship, or provide workshops on a wide range of topics. They have been featured artists at over 2000 performances for corporations, organizations, theatres, concerts, cruise ships, associations, churches and ministries nationally and internationally.
Michael and Amy are currently involved in ministry leadership as part of church plant in Denver, CO called Matthew's Party. Michael is the lead pastor and they frequently lead worship.
Michael Pickering
Dr. Seuss, one of my favorite authors, wrote a delightful and insightful book entitled, "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" an inspirational and hopeful look at life's new beginnings. The opening line joyfully proclaims -
"Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!"
Of course, he didn't mention that many of the places we’d go were never part of our original plan!
“Congratulations!
You'll soar like a jet.
Family, house, and cars!
You're buried in debt!”
Thankfully, God has other plans. And it was in third grade when I began to discover these included me.
My family didn't attend church. Our life was a circus - literally! We did a trampoline act and toured six to nine months out of the year. After I asked Jesus into my life while in third grade, I did attend church but only sporadically, mostly with friends during my primary days, and then a little more regularly as a young adult. I was a church mutt, a little Baptist here, a little Assemblies there, some Calvary Chapel, Free Methodist, and Episcopal thrown in for good measure. But after all those years and in all those churches I somehow managed to keep Jesus outside the center ring of my life. Don't get me wrong. Jesus was definitely my Savior - God knows I needed one! But He most certainly was not my Lord! After all, that job was already filled...by me.
After spending a number of years smashing myself into numerous (and painful) brick walls, and this in spite of my brilliant self-leadership, I realized I was in need. I was weary of the emptiness of my socially vagabond lifestyle. I moved from relationship to relationship, just like how our family act used to travel from town to town. I knew little of intimacy and fell short of total faithfulness. And after finding myself alone and divorced... again, I felt my life, my dreams, my hopes, my potential-to-be dried up and wasted. I was damaged goods.
It had been a while but I somehow wandered back into a church one Sunday morning. Yes, I intentionally packed my bags for a guilt trip! But instead of being further beaten up by guilt - I was pretty good at doing this to myself - I quite unexpectedly, and most undeservedly, found myself basking in grace. God’s forgiving, life-changing, hope-restoring, purpose-giving, unconditional-loving, guilt-busting, damaged goods-recycling grace! Although I had lost most of my faith in God, and had given up on myself, that morning I was reminded Jesus hadn’t given up on me.
Over the next two years I was discipled by this church's Worship Pastor, and for the first time I began to understand what it meant for Jesus to be the Lord of my life. For the first time, I began to understand His love for me. And for the first time, I felt safe. Safe enough in His goodness to let go of my fear, my embarrassment, my failure, my shame, my fury and to trust Him. No longer in control, my burden dropped, my arms now empty, I found myself on the doorstep of intimacy. Inside of me, I would discover His courage, His strength, His grace, His joy, His forgiveness, and His purpose for my being. It was a new beginning.
My days under the big top are far behind, and although the demands and struggles of life's daily circus have left (and continue to) leave their scars, we are never without hope or redemption. Oh, the places we’ll go! Thank God we’re always within His loving sight and healing reach. Life is hard, but God is good!
“Congratulations!
Today there is hope.
Jesus still loves you!
Even when you’re a dope!”
Amy Pickering
"What's your testimony?" The question that used to instill fear into my very core. The reason? I didn't feel I had one. At church, we would listen to speakers who had these absolutely miraculous testimonies. God had delivered one man from a cocaine addiction. God had healed a woman's son from a deadly disease overnight with no medical explanation. Another had been flattened by an old Soviet satellite careening out of a fiery orbit only to be miraculously re-inflated back to life by the very minty breath of God!! The list went on and on. Jesus had transformed so many lives from utter destruction to pure joy and the hope of a glorious eternity. Then there was me.
I was born into an amazing legacy of Christians, including missionaries, pastors, worship leaders and Sunday School teachers. I accepted Jesus as my Savior at the age of 4, was baptized at 10, spent most of my time at church functions with church people, sang on the worship team, taught Vacation Bible School, never smoked, never drank, never stole or swore, never appeared on an episode of COPS. I just didn’t feel like God had really changed my life from something horrible to something glorious. I was actually embarrassed to share my story because I felt like it was boring. Who wants to hear about Miss Goody-Two-Shoes who never did anything bad? Certainly not my non-Christian friends, who would counter my lame attempts to share Christ with, "You're so sweet and naive. Call me when you've actually lived." There were times I honestly wished that I had been a drug addict, plagued with disease, or had gotten pregnant in high school by an alien mutant life-form just so I would have a testimony too.
While in college, in addition to my studies, I went through many semesters of soul-searching. In spite of finding a wonderful branch of Campus Crusade, a solid Bible-teaching church, and great Christian roommates in a very secular university, I found my faith faltering. What did I truly believe? It wasn't enough for me anymore to believe just because my parents, and their parents were believers. Was I a Christian simply because it was a family tradition? Where was the proof of God's power in my life?
The enemy began to work on me, magnifying my fears, feeding me lies, and almost convincing me that since I had no miraculous intervention, there really was nothing to my faith. And was it really even "my faith," or merely the faith of my family? Something I carried with me like other lessons about manners, chewing with my mouth closed, or it isn't nice to feed your baby sister the dog's food? Something had to change, and I challenged God to prove Himself to me, or I just might forget this whole Christian thing. Then God used a wonderful woman at a Campus Crusade meeting one night to change my life. But only after she first ticked me off!
She shared her testimony. Guess what? There it was again, another extraordinary example of how God's perfect love changes a life aimed at destruction into something beautiful and Christ-honoring. I was livid! I remember basically yelling at God in my mind. "Where's MY testimony!? Where is the proof of You in MY life!?" Then, this woman said something that really caught my attention. She said that although she was done with her usual message, she felt compelled to add something else. "For those of you who have been Christians since a young age and find yourselves feeling left out, almost angry, because you don't see a change in yourself from a life filled with sin to a life filled with Jesus, you have the most amazing testimony of all." Say what? She was audibly speaking my heart on the microphone to an audience of hundreds. I was breathless. "Don't forget. We're all sinners and fall short of God's ideal. But the Lord has both saved you from your sins and spared you from the pain that people like myself wish we had never experienced. You are a true testimony to me, a soul saved from the clutches of the enemy's grasp and a life filled with the glory of God. You are a living example of God's true design for us to have a lifelong relationship with Him. Don't be ashamed of your life lived for Christ, but share it!"
And there it was. The proof of God's power in my life I had never been able to see. I had been solely focused on myself and on others, the opposite of being focused on God. My testimony WAS beautiful and miraculous and important and worthy of being shared, just like all the gut-wrenching stories I had heard, and Jesus had given it to me to share. That night, the faith of my Christian heritage truly became my own. That night, I refocused my eyes on Him and thanked Him for dying for my sins, for bringing me to Himself at such a young age, and for all the blessings He had given to me... and especially for keeping me from bearing that hideous, alien mutant-baby back in high school!
