Scott Reeves

What we talked about

The work he cannot not do

Reeves spent years volunteering at Riverbend before joining the staff. He has been a church member for nearly two decades and a staff leader for four years, but he describes the larger commitment as service to Austin itself.

The transition followed a 25-year career in specialty sports surfacing and senior management. The disruption of the pandemic prompted a second-half-of-life question: how should he use the next chapter to give back? Ministry was not the expected answer, but service kept pulling.

Why Austin still feels distinct

A seventh-generation Texan and University of Texas graduate, Reeves values Austin's mix of food, music, art, international influence and creative energy. The city has changed from a sleepy capital into a global growth center without entirely losing the rhythms that made it unusual.

He is more interested in what the city can become than in grieving a frozen version of old Austin. The challenge is to use growth to strengthen service and connection while preserving the creative bones underneath it.

Faith communities serving side by side

From Reeves' perspective, community-building across Austin has become easier in important ways. Since the pandemic, congregations and denominations that might not have worked together decades ago increasingly serve alongside one another.

That collaboration extends beyond churches. Faith communities, corporations and nonprofits have found common ground around neighbors who are marginalized or experiencing material hardship. Shared service creates relationships that institutional labels once kept apart.

Austin Blessings Co-op

Riverbend helped launch Austin Blessings Co-op during the pandemic as food need expanded dramatically. A pantry that had served several hundred people a week grew into a cooperative network reaching thousands.

Reeves says the co-op fed nearly 200,000 people in a year and became the largest faith-based partner of the Central Texas Food Bank across its service area. Partners have included congregations from different traditions, including Muslim and Baptist communities serving together.

Showing up is the first step

The cooperative offers opportunities to volunteer most days of the week. Reeves' advice for getting involved is deliberately simple: show up. Service begins before someone has the perfect role, schedule or theory of change.

People can bring time, skill, money or relationships. What matters first is entering the room with others who want to serve humanity, including people whose faith or background may be different.

Loyalty as a civic practice

Asked what he hopes people remember, Reeves chooses loyalty—to friends, family, community and oneself. He traces that quality to the example of his parents and a household where keeping up with people required deliberate, repeated effort.

Checking in is not a drain on his energy; it creates the energy. Relationships remain strong because someone makes the call, sends the message, attends the lunch and notices who needs support. Technology can organize the list, but it cannot replace the encounter.

Why connection cannot be automated

AI can help with many tasks, but Reeves does not believe it can reproduce the accumulated human context of living in a city for decades. It cannot attend lunch, run into someone unexpectedly and carry the history of prior conversations into that moment.

Community rests on those unplanned contacts as much as formal programs. The value is not merely exchanging information. It is being known well enough that presence communicates care.

Riverbend beyond Sunday morning

Riverbend's campus has long combined worship with arts and public events. Its main auditorium was designed as a performing-arts hall, and the campus has hosted secular concerts, speakers, book events and community gatherings.

Reeves describes Riverbend as more than a church: a school, arts center, memorial garden, food cooperative and potential home for coworking, sports and other civic uses. Tens of thousands already attend non-worship events there each year.

A seven-day vision for 2050

Riverbend's Vision 2050 work asks how the institution and its 56-acre campus can remain useful to Austin for the next generation. The phrase “One Riverbend” is meant to connect the many programs into a single public identity.

The mission is a welcoming community compelled by grace to serve. The practical expression is a campus active seven days a week—somewhere people may worship, volunteer, learn, perform, gather or simply find a place in the city.