About four months ago, my family (of 6…soon to be 7!) moved into a new house. For the three years prior, though, we lived in our ministry center (an old house with a meeting room and offices attached). Yeah, you read that right. We lived in the place where I worked. With college students. And my four kids. For three years.

While this kind of living arrangement would not work for everybody, it worked for us. And there is one simple reason why it did: boundaries.

My wife and I were intentional about setting up boundaries between my life as a campus minister and my life as a family man…in the same location. Every campus minister…nay, every minister…needs to have boundaries in place. They serve as protective walls around that which is most sacred…much like the wall around Jerusalem in the days of Nehemiah. These boundaries need to be in place on four fronts: personal, Sabbath, marriage, and technology.

Personal: Every college minister I know is a sponge. We keep squeezing out into the lives of students whatever we have absorbed. The problem is most of us squeeze out well more than we take in. This renders us dry and ineffective. We must, therefore, protect our time alone with God, where we absorb his word, his encouragement, and his goodness. Moses went up on the mountain to hear from God. Jesus carved out time with his Father. Both went alone and very few, if any, were allowed to interrupt.

View it for what it is…sacred time alone with our Creator. Your students need you to meet with God. As does your spouse, your kids, and your soul.

Sabbath: Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for man (Mark 2:27). God, having created man, knows of our incredible need for rest and our incredible tendency to ignore this need. Therefore, he demands from us a day set aside each week for rest.

This day does not have to be Sunday. In fact, Sundays are some of my busiest days. I am usually preaching somewhere in the morning and the evenings are great for meeting with my leadership team. I try to reserve Saturdays for my day of rest. When events fall on a Saturday, I simply find a day in the middle of the week.

And I do…nothing. You could use this day for rest. For worship. For playing with your kids or watching a movie or reading a book.

Marriage: There is an Old Testament principle that we have lost over the years, and our marriages are paying dearly for it. Check out Deuteronomy 24:5:

“If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.”

While it is not practical for (most of) us to take a year off of work, the least we can do is give our spouses one evening a week. Thursday nights in my house are “date night.” Simply, this means neither my wife nor myself make any plans for Thursday nights. This is an evening reserved for each other. No meetings, no events, no nothing.

We don’t go out every week. We are in campus ministry, after all. The dollar bills are not all that abundant. Even if we stay in, we make it a special night. Usually we feed our kids an early dinner and get them shuffled off to bed earlier than usual. We then make a special meal for the two of us and watch a movie or play a game or simply sit at the kitchen table and chat.

Technology: Technology is like fire. A little bit of fire in your fireplace is a good thing. Too much fire on your couch can be dangerous. Unfortunately, I think campus ministers generally tend to prefer the flamethrower to the single match.

I used to be a flamethrower kind of guy. I had my smartphone with all the apps I “needed.” It checked all of my email accounts every fifteen minutes. I could get online any time I wanted. It beeped every time I had an appointment or had a new Tweet to read. I relied on it for everything and had slight panic attacks if it wasn’t on my person.

And then it struck me. I live and work in three places: my home, my office, and on campus. All three locations have wireless internet access. When I am not meeting with a student, I am usually on my computer, able to receive email and Tweets and what not. Thus, the only time I really used a phone to access the internet or retrieve email was when I was meeting with someone or hanging with my family. And I really shouldn’t be doing so then, because that would communicate to those people that I did not value them or their time as much as I did the latest email I just received.

And so now, I am a single match guy. I have a flip phone. Enough said.

I get along just fine. In fact, my wife is happier because the phone doesn’t interrupt dinner like it used to. My kids are happier because they get my full attention. My students are happier because I am no longer distracted when we meet.

And I have yet to miss an important email. (Plus I save $50 a month on my cell bill!)

These are the four fronts where I have built boundary walls in my life. And while what I have shared is nothing new, much like Nehemiah I find myself constantly needing to check these walls and make sure my boundaries are strong. I’d encourage you to perform that check today.

I’d be curious to hear from you…on what other fronts have you built boundaries?

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Brandon Smith is the Lead Campus Minister at the Christian Campus House at Northwest Missouri State University. Married with 4 kids (and 1 on the way!), he blogs at www.mynameisbrandon.com. Find him on Twitter at @mynameisbrandon.