We trace our beginning back to 1937 when J. Lloyd Hunter organized Rural Bible Crusade in Wheaton, IL. But perhaps the true beginning of the ministry was in 1918 in a communistic community in rural Minnesota where Hunter and his wife, Bertha, were inspired with the idea of the Bible Memory Contest. Or perhaps the beginning of the ministry was in 1913 in a mission near Joliet, Illinois, where Hunter was called to minister to children. Or the ministry could be said to have began in 1896 when Hunter, as a small child, accepted Christ as his Savior. Or the ministry may be traced to thousands of years ago when a Man from Galilee told His disciples, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.

Regardless of the true beginning of the ministry, the history of Bible Impact Ministries is intricately tied to the history of one man - J. Lloyd Hunter. Hunter, a farm boy from Frankfort, Illinois, accepted Christ as his Savior as a child of six years of age and surrendered his life to service for God at the age of 15. Hunter went on to schooling at Shutleff College in Alton, Illinois, and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. During his last year at Moody, Hunter served as minister at the Ridgewood Baptist Church in Joliet, Illinois, and would also preach at pacific Garden Mission. It was at this Mission that hunter knelt with a ragged drunkard and led him into the family of God. This grown man, this drunkard saved by grace, was a picture of years of waste and futility Hunter would not forget. As Hunter knelt with this man, saw the filth, smelled the alcohol, and witnessed the changing power of God's grace and mercy, he thought to himself, "If only this man had been won to Christ as a boy, his whole life would have been saved." There in that mission, with that drunkard, Hunter felt the call of God to give his life to teaching children of Christ.

From here Hunter went on to work with the American Sunday School Union in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. While in Minnesota, Hunter and his wife found themselves working among a group of communist sympathizers. Hunter wrote of them in a later R.B.C. newsletter, "They were holding weekly meetings, plotting the overthrow of the government, fostering hatred, violence, rebellion."