Readers exercise their ministry as part of a wide group of diverse, collaborative ministries which make up the total ministry resource of the Church of England. Martineau summarised the tensions within the diversity as, "full and part time, local and travelling, ordained and lay, and paid and unpaid". The tensions are worked out within a variety of different situations by ministers who have contrasting duties, roles and responsibilities such as, "pastoral oversight compared to shared responsibility, parochial compared to non-parochial ministry, ministry of the word compared to ministry of the sacrament, and ministry in the church compared to ministry in the world"

A further feature is that the church's understanding of a particular ministry does not remain static. An illustration of a current topic which has a potential impact on Readers, is Stephen Sykes' motion at the November 1998 General Synod of the Church of England which called for a review of the understanding of the nature of the diaconate.

The clergy can also be organised into categories such as the dignitaries (the diocesan bishops, suffragon bishops, archdeacons, and the Cathedral deans, provost and other clergy), the non-parochial diocesan staff, the parochial clergy, the chaplains and other ministers. This particular analysis is used by the General Synod of the Church of England for reporting the volume of human resources that is available.