Nebraska churches are taking a cautious approach to resuming worship services though they will be allowed to gather their members again starting next month.

The Rev. Michael McCabe of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Lincoln said he’s looking forward to seeing his congregation again on Sunday mornings, but he’s not sure when that will happen. Gov. Pete Ricketts has announced churches may reopen starting May 4.

The governor’s office said churches will need to refrain from passing items among worshipers and people from different households will have to sit 6 feet apart.

McCabe’s church will continue to worship online.

“Health comes first at this point in time,” he said.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha said services will be allowed again beginning May 4, but the archbishop is leaving the reopening decision up to pastors and their parish councils.

“We will work within the necessary restrictions for everyone’s safety,” Archbishop George Lucas said.

At Christ Community Church in Omaha, the Rev. Mark Ashton said the church hasn’t decided when it will start having services in its worship center again, but it won’t rush to restart services partly because it has a strong online option.

“If we were to do appropriate social distancing, really we’re talking more like about 400 or 500 would be able to fit in there,” Ashton said. “So we’re asking some strategic questions about people’s worship experience and then we would have to expand the number of services to be able to accommodate a similar number of people.”