“Every great dream begins with a dreamer.” –Harriet Tubman

It all started with a dreamer. A mother who had been told she could have no more children. But yet, in her dreams she saw the face of a child. And in an orphanage in Little Rock, Ark., she found the face of six-month-old Curt Collins.

From the beginning, pop/rock artist Curt Collins acknowledges the crucial role that adoption plays in his ministry and musical calling. His songs are an ode of sorts to the parents who raised him – heroic in Collins’ eyes. And while he praises the work of fellow Christian artists such as Steven Curtis Chapman and Mark Schultz who have done so much on behalf of adoption advocacy, Collins claims his mission is slightly unique. He has a specific burden for special needs kids – a burden he hopes to see come alive in his dream of starting The Love Unconditional Foundation (named after a song on his self-titled debut). Though The Love Unconditional Foundation is still only in the dreaming stages, Collins’ vision for ways to help others continues to expand.

“The Love Unconditional Foundation would be set up to help families that have adopted special needs children into the family,” says Collins. “I feel like God is going to put the right people in the right place to do that. I don’t know what God’s going to do with it, but He does grant the desires of our heart, I think.”

Collins is no stranger to pursuing the desires of his heart. With a degree in music education, he was a public school band director for four years. He then went into the business of financial services before realizing that he needed to make music his full-time pursuit. “My passion is touching people’s lives through music,” Collins adds.

This passion is evident on his third record, Another Day – an album that’s bound to find countless people resonating with this hard-working husband and father. “One reason that my music connects with people is that everybody’s seems to be going through the same things in life that I’m going through,” says Collins. “If somebody’s driving down the road, and they hear my song on Christian radio and it touches them, then my job is done and God will do the rest in his own time.”

One example comes in his role as a father to two teenage sons, a role that inspired the new song “Hiding Place.” “We have two teenage boys, and it’s not an easy road, but it’s one you would never trade. I had that melody [for ‘Hiding Place’] on my mind for a long time. Then, the words just started coming one day. The song talks about God being your hiding place.”

Taking refuge in Christ is a strong theme woven throughout Another Day.“ God is my hiding place and my comforter – my sword, my shield,” Collins explains. “God is never going to let you go. You can waste your years; He’ll give you a second chance. He’ll give you the time to change.”

Change is something Collins hopes to instigate through the songs he shares with others.

“I have a passionate love for Christ. God is a God of unconditional love, and I really believe that,” he asserts. “We’re constantly being faced with conditions all day – conditions for work, conditions for play...And God is not a God of conditions; He’s an unconditional God of love. That’s where I’m at. Time is a factor, too. God is timeless. He’s going to wait a long time for people to come to him.”

That’s why Collins places an emphasis on reaching one person at a time, one song at a time, even if it means he doesn’t share the byline on every tune. While Collins shares co-writing credits on several songs with Curb recording artist, Jamie Slocum, who also produced Another Day, Collins also covers songs from Stevie Wonder (“Higher Ground”) and Richard Page (“Shelter Me”), creating an eclectic track listing. “There are so many great songwriters out there and I’ll probably never do an album with all my own songs, because there are too many great tunes out there,” he says. Another Day also includes two new arrangements of classic hymns – “Blessed Assurance” and Kristian Stanfill’s version of “Jesus Paid It All.”

“We did ‘Jesus Paid It All’ in church, and I saw my wife raising her hands with tears in her eyes, and I just thought, ‘We’ve got to do that song, cause it’s so good.’ The old hymns don’t need to be forgotten,” adds Collins.

He even admits to being affected by his own album: “As I continued to work on this album, God somehow turned the album into a CD that ministered to me. There were times when I would just drive down the road, and I would think, ‘Wow, I see why I did this record, because it’s ministered to me.’”

Collins cites numerous examples of how each song holds significant meaning for him personally. Still, this album is a natural progression for Collins’ career. “I’ve always been a rocker at heart,” he adds, “and I think this album shows that.” Collins past success only proves that listeners want to hear what he has to say. In fact, “He Will Pull You Through,” from his self-titled sophomore project was one of the top 100 songs at CRW in 2007, and his current single, “Another Day,” jumped from #32 to #9 at Inspo Radio according to CRW.

Aside from the accomplishments he’s already achieved, Collins counts his success in different ways. Letters from fans and friends continue to inspire his music, and his passion for special needs kids fuels his fire for his vocation. In the end, he simply hopes to encourage people just like himself who are dealing with the gritty stuff of life – marriage, kids, passion and faith. “I hope that listeners can turn to God in times of trouble – that He is their safe harbor, that He is their hiding place,” says Collins. “If they are at the right place in their lives, regardless of where they are in life’s journey, God’s just not going to leave them alone. He’s not going to abandon them or forsake them.”