Not long ago I started a social media discussion on boundaries through this Instagram meme: “There’s room in your heart for everyone, but there’s not room in the car.” The idea behind the meme: We should love and be willing to serve everyone without exclusion, but we ought be selective with our close travel companions, for that is quite a different thing.

Start talking boundaries and leaders break out in a sweat.

We want them, know we need them, but most of us didn’t go to “leadership boundary school” to help us manage and implement the steps.

We’ve also been burned from events in the past when we tried to set a boundary with someone and unpleasantries ensued.

Turns out, boundaries make others nervous, too.

Not long ago I started a social media discussion on boundaries through this Instagram meme: “There’s room in your heart for everyone, but there’s not room in the car.”

The idea behind the meme: We should love and be willing to serve everyone without exclusion, but we ought be selective with our close travel companions, for that is quite a different thing.

People had some strong reactions.

Wisdom! I’ve struggled with this all my life!

Love this analogy. This is hard for me, but I know it’s important.

I hear you, but as Christians aren’t we supposed to love and accept everyone?

Boundaries aren’t for believers. Jesus didn’t have boundaries. Check your Bible.

I knew it would be a love-it-or-leave-it kind of a post. But I plowed onward, since I find the subject vital to the health of ministry leaders after watching us struggle in this area for years—often throwing in the towel after extended periods of feeling used, manipulated, and exhausted by the people we intended to serve.

As I say to leaders in our weekend workshops with Ministry Strong—and as I’ve occasionally reminded myself: Your unwillingness to set boundaries is forcing your own early exit from ministry.

The truth is, we struggle with boundaries because we misunderstand them.

Myth #1: Boundaries are Meant to Divide.

We mistakenly feel boundaries are meant to divide. But healthy boundaries—done with a right heart and spirit and in the right way—aren’t the same as barriers.

Barriers are forms of solo self-protection, for the sole purpose of walling off the one putting them up. But boundaries are different: They’re meant to help relationships on all sides, creating greater unity and health.

Boundaries help the boundary giver in that they keep us humble and aware we have limited capacity, unlike God. Where God is not limited by time, space, or emotional capacity, we, as humans, are.

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