When people accuse Calvinists of not preaching the gospel or not taking it to lost sinners, they only reveal their abounding ignorance.  There is a corrupt form of Calvinism, known as Hyper-Calvinism (the most well-known current version of it being Westboro Baptist Church) which does not preach the gospel to the lost because they believe that God will bring the elect to salvation in his own time and way.  In this they are just like some Dispensational Premillennialists (e.g. Billy Graham) who refuse to preach the gospel to the Jews who, they say, are already God’s people.  But genuine Calvinists correctly understand the symbiotic relationship between the gospel and predestination (see 1 Thess 1:4-6).

John Calvin: church planter and trainer of missionaries

In the 1550’s, while Calvin was at Geneva, he received many refugees fleeing from Catholic persecution; while they were there, sitting under his preaching and pastoral care, many of them began feeling burdened for their homeland and wanted to return and take the gospel with them.  So Calvin taught them theology and how to preach, and he assessed their moral character before he sent them out. And once they were involved with their work, he prayed for them constantly and corresponded with them frequently to support, advise, and encourage them as much as he could.

By 1559 the church at Geneva had planted 100 churches in France and by 1562 there were more than 2000 churches there.  Some of these churches were so successful that they had to conduct three services every Sunday to cater to the many thousands who attended them.  He also sent missionaries to Italy, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, the Rhineland, and even as far away as Brazil.  Calvin’s heart was for the preaching of the gospel and during the last ten years of his life, missions were his “absolute preoccupation”.  For example, in a sermon on 2 Timothy 1:8-9, Calvin said, “If the gospel be not preached, Jesus Christ is, as it were, buried.  Therefore, let us stand as witnesses, and do him this honour, when we shall see the world so far out of the way; and remain steadfast in this wholesome doctrine….let us here observe that St Paul condemns our unthankfulness, if we be so unthankful to God, as not to bear witness of his gospel; seeing he hath called us to it”.

Ref: http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/john-calvin-missionary-and-church-planter

William Carey: Father of modern Missions

It’s well known that the man who began the modern missionary movement was a Baptist Christian named William Carey.  However, it is not as well known, or at least acknowledged, that Carey was a Calvinist.  His church was one of the Particular Baptist (Hyper-Calvinist) churches.  Carey and some of his Calvinist friends founded the Baptist Missionary Society in order to take the gospel to the heathen.  So the first modern missionary and the first modern mission society and the impetus for all missions since then came, humanly speaking, from within Calvinism.   Obviously, these Calvinists understood the essential link between predestination and the gospel.

Surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses…

Here is a partial list of missionaries and revivalists, every one of them a Calvinist:

• John Eliot – first missionary to the American (Algonquian-speaking) Indians (1600’s)
• Jonathan Edwards preached during the “First Great Awakening” (a huge revival) and he recorded what God was doing during that revival.  His sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” caused multitudes to turn to Christ and be saved.  He was also a missionary to the Housatonic Indians, and established Princeton University.  It was established to train young men for the ministry but has since been hijacked by liberals who deny everything in the bible and train all their students to think the same.  Many have lost their faith through the influence of this one establishment
• David Brainerd – a friend of Jonathan Edwards and missionary to the Mohawk Indians
• William Tennent, founder of the “Log College”, a Calvinist theological college where many preachers were trained; these men preached during the “First Great Awakening”.
• Samuel Davies preached the gospel to the slaves in Virginia; many hundreds were saved
• Robert Moffatt took the gospel to “Darkest Africa”
• David Livingstone also took the gospel to Africa
• Robert Morrison was a missionary to China
• Peter Parker (not Spiderman) also took the gospel to China
• Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, bible translator, and church planter
• John G. Paton, missionary to Vanuatu
• Charles Simeon, Anglican minister and founder of the Church Missionary Society
• Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia
• Samuel Zwemer, missionary to Bahrain, Egypt, Arabia, and Turkey – known as “the Apostle to Islam”

And then there are the famous Gospel and Revival preachers, such as George Whitefield, who preached the Gospel to 30,000 people at a time in the fields, because the Church establishment wouldn’t allow him a church in which to preach to them.

Whitefield preached during the revival known as The First Great Awakening, which was sparked by Jonathan Edwards whom I mentioned above.  During this revival, John Wesley also preached to thousands at a time in the fields.  The majority of revivalist preachers in the First and Second Great Awakenings were Calvinists.  There were, of course, many non-Calvinist revivalist preachers at this time (e.g. Wesley), but the presence and impact of Calvinist revivalist preachers was significant, and it is not only ignorant of people to accuse Calvinists for not preaching the Gospel and doing missionary work, but highly offensive.  

Charles Spurgeon is another inconvenient truth for Calvin-haters.  He was a shining light who preached to thousands every week, and under whose ministry revival occurred.

The history of the Church from the time of the Reformation is studded with Calvinist worthies who gave everything for God and the Gospel and to bring sinners to salvation.