M.Div. programs sequence curriculum in order to cumulatively build competencies for wise, faithful, reflective, appropriate and effective ministerial practices. That is why the introductory preaching course typically is positioned somewhere near the middle of the program. The author of this article discovered that students who, in the semester immediately preceding the introductory preaching course, were apprenticed in the art of critical theological reflection on previously preached sermons entered the introductory course more eager, with more finely attuned expectation levels, and with anxiety levels that promoted rather than hampered learning.