Matthew 6

I would say that church services are not essential, since people are free to pray and worship on their own any time they wish to ...

Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven ....

‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you ... Matthew 6

And it's not just about essentialness, but the safety factor. Trump apparently is too dim to notice that hundreds of people don't congregate together in close quarters for extended times in order to buy a bottle of whiskey or get an abortion, as they do at church services, thus upping the chances of spreading the virus.

Or maybe he does know that and just doesn't care - everything he has done and failed to do regarding the virus has caused *more* deaths, so maybe that's his plan.

His pushing of the drug hydroxychloroquine, for instance, is putting more people in danger ... Antimalarial drug touted by President Trump is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients, study says

I assume this was a message to his Evangelical base ... "Vote for me because I'm in favor of churches, while the Democrats only care about liquor and abortion". At the end of the day, what Trump wants the governors to do doesn't matter - he doesn't have the power to make them open anything.