I’m Rachel Collins, the writer behind Treasuring God’s Word. I’m a wife, mom, Bible study leader, and someone who genuinely loves sitting around a table with other women and an open Bible.

If you’ve found your way here, you may be wondering, Who is this lady writing Bible studies? And why should I trust a study she wrote and published herself?

Fair questions.

I don’t have a string of letters after my name, and I’m not a pastor’s wife or a well-known Bible teacher. What I do have is more than fifteen years of studying Scripture alongside other women, leading Bible studies, training leaders, teaching at retreats, and writing studies that have been worked through and refined in real Bible study groups.

But it wasn’t my plan to do any of those things. In fact, when I first sensed the Lord prompting me to lead a Bible study, one of my arguments to the Lord was essentially, “You’ve got the wrong person. Surely someone else could do this better.”

His answer took me straight to Moses.

So maybe the best way to introduce myself is to tell you how I got here.

It started with Jesus

My walk with the Lord began when I was just a little girl. You know those testimonies that are structured like, “Before Jesus I was like this, then JESUS! And now look at what He’s done with me!” I love those testimonies! But that’s not my story. Mine is the story of a Savior who met me when I was very young and has faithfully walked with me ever since.

Some of my earliest memories are of my mom reading Bible stories to me at bedtime. I came to faith as a small child, and while I certainly didn’t understand much theology then, the Lord knew me. Over the years, He has continued to draw me to Himself and grow my faith through His Word.

How I fell in love with studying the bible

Years later, as a young mom in my twenties, I was browsing through a Christian bookstore when I picked up a book from Precept Ministries’ New Inductive Study Series. I didn’t know anything about inductive Bible study. I just knew I wanted to study my Bible.

That little book changed the way I approached Scripture. Even though I had grown up in church and attended a Christian college, for the first time I was learning to slow down and really look at the text—to notice words and phrases, ask questions, consider context, compare Scripture with Scripture, and make sure my conclusions came from what was actually there rather than what I assumed it said.

I noticed something as I studied. Passages that were once mysteries started to open up as if they were a rose in bloom. I began making connections throughout Scripture, seeing how every story and every passage built on the others. And more importantly, I was getting to know God even more.

I never imagined at the time that the Lord was only getting started with me.

The Bible Study I Didn’t Want to Lead

When my husband and I were 29, we began working with young adults at our church. We spent much of the first year learning from another couple who had a thriving college ministry. What impressed me most wasn’t their events or even their Bible studies. It was the way they shared their lives. Their home was always open, with young adults constantly coming and going, eating meals, hanging out, asking questions, and becoming part of their family.

Lifestyle ministry. It reminded me of something I had learned growing up in the Salvation Army: church wasn’t just what you did on Sunday morning. It was a family you lived with.

We eventually had about a dozen young adults who became our core group, and our house was rarely empty. Around that time, after taking a break from more intensive study while my boys were babies, I picked up inductive Bible study again. One morning as I was praying, I had a distinct thought: Share this with the young adults. I knew that voice. It was absolutely NOT my own.

The plan was simple, or so I thought. Maybe one or two of them would work through the book alongside me, and I could casually ask after dinner, “So, how’s it going?”

That’s not what happened. About a dozen people wanted to study with me, including a few friends. Suddenly we were meeting every week, and I discovered that I was in the role of a Bible study leader. What??

I had no idea what I was doing. Those first studies were a hot mess. Rabbit trails. Discussions that went nowhere. Skipping lessons because “only two or three were there.” Letting a study drag on for an eternity. But they hung with me, and I began learning what leading a Bible study really could, and should, look like.

Learning to Lead

That fall, Precept was offering Bible-study leader training nearby, and I signed up as soon as I could. I learned to ask good questions and wait for an answer. Leading a study was very different from teaching. I didn’t have to have all the answers. Listen, keep pointing back to the text, and let the Bible do the teaching. I still had a long way to go, but I was hooked.

Our family moved to Calvary Chapel Fredericksburg in 2012, and before long I was asked to offer Precept studies to the women there. I started Genesis with about a dozen ladies. The group kept growing, eventually multiplying into two, then three groups in the morning and another in the evening. Word spread through the church, and like that Samaritan woman in John 4, the gals kept inviting their friends, saying, “Come and see!”

My relationship with Precept grew as well. For two years, I served on volunteer staff as an Area Growth Coordinator for Northern Virginia, helping pastors and ministry leaders understand how Precept studies and training could be used in their churches. I also hosted leader-training workshops and attended ministry meetings and conferences.

When Precept began experimenting with a more personal approach to training leaders, I was invited to Chattanooga to learn their new coaching model. After completing the training and being assessed by a team of Precept authors and editors, I was approved to coach and certify new Precept leaders. Over the next couple of years, I coached women learning to lead in their own churches and groups. It wasn’t about reaching as many leaders as possible, it was about investing deeply in a few. I’m still in contact with some of those women today, and many of them are still leading Bible studies.

Investing in the Women in Front of Me

Around 2017, my pastor asked me to join the three-woman team leading Women’s Ministry at Calvary Chapel Fredericksburg. We shared responsibility for caring for the women in our church, with different areas of focus. Mine was teaching. I oversaw our Bible studies, trained small-group leaders, developed retreat teaching, and served as our primary Bible teacher. I was able to focus on the part of women’s ministry I loved most—opening God’s Word with women and helping them learn to do the same.

Before long, I found myself at a crossroads. I could invest more heavily in coaching through Precept, or focus my attention on what the Lord was doing among the women in my own church. For me, the answer was obvious.

Around 2019, I entrusted the Precept studies at my church to the leaders I had raised up and began focusing on another group of women—women who wanted to study God’s Word deeply but needed something different from the studies we were already offering. They were working, raising children, caring for families, serving in church, and juggling all the ordinary responsibilities of life. I listened to what they needed and prayed about how I could meet those needs.

In early 2020, I pivoted our Women’s Ministry Bible studies. Instead of focusing primarily on teaching women how to dig deeply into the Word, our emphasis became building community around the Word of God. Still inductive. Still substantive. But more accessible and more relationship-oriented.

The Lord knew exactly what we would need. We had no idea what was coming.

How Treasuring God’s Word Began

Like churches everywhere, we suddenly had to figure out how to minister when many of the ways we normally did ministry weren’t available to us. We finished our first study over Zoom, but I couldn’t just say, “goodbye—see you in the fall!” We needed to stay connected, and I didn’t have a study ready for them.

By fall, COVID was still lingering, and I still didn’t know what our study would look like. My pastor and I decided to stay in the Psalms, this time studying familiar ones like Psalms 23, 100, and 1. I thought we could simply use the summer devotional guide.

Then I started prepping. I realized our discussions could easily become a rehash of everything they’d already heard about these familiar psalms. I wanted them to see the text with new eyes, so I began writing. Within a few weeks, Favorite Treasures in the Psalms was born, the precursor to Call to Worship. As we worked through it, I listened carefully to the ladies. Were the questions clear? Were they accurate? Was it too much? Too little?

After that, writing our studies became a “thing.” The next spring we worked through Habakkuk and then Philippians. A few gals asked if I planned to publish them. My answer was always, “I’m not intending to. The Lord would have to make that happen.” But one thing I WAS praying for was a coach—someone with more experience who could look at what I was doing and tell me the truth. What was working? What wasn’t? I wasn’t looking for someone to tell me they were wonderful. I wanted help serving my ladies well. And that’s exactly what the Lord gave me.

From Writing to Publishing

During my coaching training at Precept, I briefly met author and Bible teacher Kathleen Duncan, who had written for Precept herself. We connected over Bible studies, and I quickly learned how particular she was about what made a good one. A few years later, I worked up the courage to ask if she would read what I had written and give me some feedback.

Kathleen came alongside me as a coach and editor, helping me refine Yet I Will Rejoice, Again I Say Rejoice, and Call to Worship. Her influence was especially important in the development of Call to Worship. We intentionally built more instruction into that study so women wouldn’t simply study several Psalms—they would also learn how to study the Psalms for themselves. I credit Kathleen with much of the development of the twelve-step study process the study is built around.

Without her encouragement, I’m not sure I ever would have considered publishing them. But Kathleen not only convinced me it was worth it; she walked me through exactly how to do it, spending hours helping me work through every step without asking anything in return. How could I say no to her gift of wisdom and time? And that’s how Bible studies written for women in my local church ended up on Amazon as Treasuring God’s Word.

I’m Still Sitting Around the Table

After twelve years at Calvary Chapel Fredericksburg, the Lord moved our family into a new season. I now attend THRIVE Christian Fellowship, a church plant that grew out of Calvary Chapel Fredericksburg. I occasionally teach and lead small groups there, and I also lead two independent Bible studies.

Those groups include women from several different church and denominational backgrounds, and I love the discussions we have. I certainly have my own theological convictions, and my years in Calvary Chapel have shaped many of them. But when we’re studying Scripture together, the question I’m most interested in isn’t, “What does Rachel think?” It’s “What does the text say?” I want women to look carefully at Scripture, understand why they believe what they believe, and be able to reason from the text—even if they don’t always land exactly where I do.

I’ve been called a teacher, and because I’ve got a few studies published, I get called an author. You might see me wince a little when I hear that. I’m in awe of what the Lord has done. If you’re reading this and end up letting me sit alongside you through one of my studies as you dig into the Word, I count you as one of those precious gals He has let me pour into. It’s a privilege.

Come, sit at a table with me. Let’s talk about the Lord. What has He shown you this week?