That revival was filled with miracles, he said, and turned his life around. The once clean-cut Fitch took what he called a Nazarite vow. It’s a reference to a vow found in the biblical Book of Numbers, taken by people who consecrated themselves to God and stopped cutting their hair and shaving.
The vow left him with a bushy beard and renewed sense of dedication to God.
For several years, he said, the words “More Lord” kept popping into his mind. He eventually felt God was telling him to start selling a T-shirt emblazoned with that message — a call he resisted for a while because he didn’t know much about selling T-shirts, much less designing them.
He turned to his friend Landon Zilbert for help.
Zilbert, a tall, gregarious graphic designer with a background in printing, took the idea and ran with it. He’s designed most of the shirts since, taking ideas from Fitch and turning them into reality.
So far, working with More Lord Kingdom is a part-time gig for Zilbert.
Landon Zilbert. RNS photo by Bob Smietana. Our plan is to multiply worshippers,” he said. “We don’t care about selling T-shirts — we will give them away. We just want to raise up a generation of folks who know their purpose and identity and to call the kings back into the kingdom.”
Zilbert, who designed the “Make America Godly Again” shirt, said the company was trying to appeal to fans of the former president with that shirt and the 45-47 shirt. But most of their focus is on spiritual revival, he said.
He worries Christianity has fallen out of favor with American culture. Churches, he said, have also often lost their way. A former church staffer turned facilities manager, he now calls himself a denomination nomad, still promoting Jesus but jaded about institutional religion.
He sees the T-shirt company as a kind of ministry.
The shirts are aimed to be conversation starters, to get people asking questions about God, said Zilbert. He and other staffers who travel with Fitch to Christian conferences to sell shirts will always offer to pray with customers.
Fitch may have picked the right time to get into the business.
God has become a hot topic in fashion, according to GQ magazine, pointing to celebrities such as Kayne West who embrace religious clothing and paraphernalia. GQ also highlighted the success of an Instagram account turned online store at I-need-god.com and the fashion label Praying.
