Surrey Chapel, though owned and managed by independent trustees primarily as a Nonconformist chapel, was operated as a venue for music, singing, and for the meetings of charities, associations and societies, several of which became closely associated with it.
One of the chapel's principal associations was with the non-denominational London Missionary Society; for over sixty years the society held its principal annual sermon at Surrey Chapel and from here dispatched many of its best known missionaries including Robert Moffat and John Williams.