L'Arche: The successes of community, the challenges of empowerment in a faith-centered setting

L'Arche communities offer faith-centered, shared community living for individuals with and without intellectual disabilities. L'Arche communities focus primarily on deepening social ties for persons with intellectual disabilities in an international context that increasingly focuses on the empowerment of this group. Several theoretical distinctions between sense of community and empowerment point to natural tensions between the two concepts. However, a further analysis uncovers the potential for positive interplay between them. Here, we present a narrative informed by experience that explores the differential effects of a deepened sense of community on empowerment within a faith-centered setting, L'Arche. Implications for creating theory and settings that promote synergy between sense of community and empowerment are discussed.