Our Story
The founding pastor of our church, Rob Dingman, came to the U.K. as a missionary with his family in 1997 to assist Pastor Brian Brodersen at Calvary Chapel Westminster, teaching three home Bible studies per week in different parts of London. Eventually, it seemed time to start an offshoot church and the Twickenham home group began Sunday services at the ETNA centre in April 2001. Since then, the church has moved facilities to Whitton School, Whitton Methodist Church, Meadhurst Primary School in Ashford Common, and most recently Bethany Chapel in Hampton where it currently resides. Having left the Twickenham area we have updated the name to Calvary Church TW to reflect still being in the “TW” postcode.
The current pastor Chris Suits along with his wife Sarah were saved at the age of 20 while he was attending Oregon State University. Chris felt a burden for youth early on in his walk with the Lord and started serving in youth ministry at their church shortly after finishing school and moving to California. In 2004, a job change took them to the place they both grew up in Southern Oregon where they continued serving in youth ministry at their church before a job transfer moved them up to Astoria in 2007. Shortly after arriving in Astoria, Chris and his family began attending Coastline Christian Fellowship and during their time there served in youth ministry, as an elder, young adult pastor, and from 2017 to 2025 as the lead pastor. Chris and Sarah have been blessed with four children; Samuel, Benjamin, Solomon, and Ezekiel.
In 2019, while returning from visiting missionaries in France, the Lord gave Chris an unexpected burden to pray for revival in London while catching a connecting flight at Heathrow Airport. Chris put this in his prayer journal and proceeded to pray weekly for revival in this city. In 2021, Sarah found out that she was qualified to apply for British citizenship due to her mother being born in the country which she received in January of 2023. In March of 2023, while visiting the United Kingdom on vacation Chris and Sarah visited Calvary Chapel Twickenham for a Sunday service and proceeded to spend the day with Pastor Rob and his family. Shortly after this visit Rob informed Chris that he had been praying since 2018 for the Lord to raise up the right man to take over as lead Pastor for him at Calvary Chapel Twickenham and that he believed Chris was the one.
Chris and Sarah proceeded to pray for direction and confirmation from the Lord regarding leaving their beloved church in Astoria, Oregon, and moving their family to the United Kingdom to pastor the church there. Over the course of time, the Lord made it clear that He wanted them to proceed with this new season He had for them which officially began in October of 2025 when they moved to the United Kingdom.
A “family” photo from the ETNA centre days
Our Beliefs
Faith
We are about faith in Jesus Christ:
“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)
“Whatever is not from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23)
Love
We are about love, because God is love (1 John 4:8). So we want to fulfil the great commandments:
“‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)
Without love our words are like clanging cymbals, our abilities are nothing, and we profit nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Hope
We are about hope, looking for the fulfillment of God’s promises to come in the future.
“Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” (Romans 8:23-25)
Hope enables us to persevere in our faith to the very end.
Faith, love, and hope are expressed through action.
Jesus said, “I must be about my Father’s business.” (Luke 2:49)
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)
We want to stimulate one another to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24), remembering that faith without works is dead (James 2:20).
We pursue faith, love, and hope as the disciples did in Acts 2:42: “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
The doctrine of the apostles is learned through the consistent, systematic exposition of the word of God, in both Old and New Testaments.
We experience fellowship, sharing in the life of God through the Holy Spirit, as we endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3). We love one another.
As we break bread (communion) we depend on the grace of God to enable us in our inability and undeserving.
We pray together, praising, worshipping and thanking God, asking for His will to be done for us and others.
Our Team
Lead Pastor
Chris Suits
Elder
Deaconess
Alexandra Fernandes