New law for Cayman churches comes into force

New government regulations to keep churches on the right side of the law have been welcomed.

Andrew Ebanks, lead pastor at George Town’s Agape Family Worship Centre and a Cayman Ministers’ Association executive committee member, said he backed the law, which he emphasised codified existing legislation.

Ebanks explained that “churches as churches already comply with them under other existing laws such as the Non-Profit Organisations Act”.

He said, “The law has always addressed both how these individual churches function internally and how they remain compliant with wider government procedures.”

Ebanks was speaking after the government issued a commencement order for the Churches Incorporation (Amendment) Act 2025.

A government spokesman said the changes were designed to “update and strengthen” the original laws and “modernise the governance arrangements for incorporated churches and reinforce their obligation as NPOs”.

The legislation sets out management rules by “clearly establishing and empowering boards of officers” to act for the church.

It underlines that that all church assets and income must be “applied exclusively to advancing the church’s purposes in line with NPO registration requirements”.

The legislation also updated property ownership provisions to clarify what land was held by each incorporated church and updated references to religious groups to take account of the correct names and jurisdictions of the various faiths involved.

The changes were made to the rules governing churches established under the Churches Incorporation Act to keep Cayman in line with the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, which will evaluate the country’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing framework in 2027.

Ebanks said, “Many of the churches in the incorporation law had been looking for an opportunity to modernise this law because it was out of date and, in some cases, completely conflicted with other, more modern legislation and internal policies and procedures for the churches.”

He added that there were two sides to the legislation: how churches governed themselves through their own procedures and how they made sure they complied with national requirements and laws.

“Each church has determined how to balance these within its own context in the legislation,” Ebanks said.

“I can only speak for the Agape Family Worship Centre in saying that the changes are welcome and beneficial to us and we are thankful to both the current and previous administrations for helping to make this possible.”